28 December 2016 – Astro-Weather: As winter tightens its grip on the Northern Hemisphere during the year’s final week, one of the most familiar constellations takes center stage – Orion the Hunter appears in the eastern sky as twilight fades – & grows even more prominent after darkness settles in. The star group climbs highest in the south around 10 pm CST, when it stands about halfway to the zenith

Mercury reaches inferior conjunction today at 1 pm CST. This means the innermost planet lies between the Sun & Earth & remains hidden in our star’s glare. It will reappear before dawn in early January

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

5th Night of Hanukkah

Pieter Paul Rubens

The ‘slaying of the innocents’ by Herod – This Massacre is the biblical account of infanticide by the Roman-appointed King of the Jews. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Herod ordered the execution of all young male children in the vicinity of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews whose birth had been announced to him by the Magi. In typical Matthean style, it is understood as the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy: “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying, ‘A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more.’’

893 – An earthquake destroys the city of Dvin, Armenia

1065 – Westminster Abbey is consecrated

1856 – Birthday of Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States. Rudolf Steiner speaks of his Arab incarnation as Muawiya & in many other lectures he exposes his imperialism.

1868 – Birthday of D.N. Dunlop, a Scottish entrepreneur, founder of the World Power Conference, & a theosophist-turned-anthroposophist. Dunlop led the anthroposophical “Human Freedom Group”, & introduced the idea of anthroposophical Summer Schools.  Rudolf Steiner & Dunlop both expressed their intimate spiritual connection & respect for one another. In 1928 he organized the first & only World Conference on Anthroposophy & in 1929 he was elected General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain. He had a great friendship with Eleanor Merry, who supported his work. Dunlop enlisted the help of fellow anthroposophist Walter Johannes Stein in the hope of founding a World Economic Organization, but his death prevented this.

1908 – The Messina earthquake shakes Southern Italy killing between 75,000 & 200,000 – See Rudolf Steiner’s lecture – The Deed of Christ and the Opposing Spiritual Powers: Earthquakes

1928 – Deathday of Count Carl W. von keyserlingk – Worked closely with Rudolf Steiner to bring about the birth of the Bio-Dynamic movement.

1939 – Deathday of Joseph Maurice Ravel a French composer, pianist & conductor. He is often associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy. Ravel was internationally regarded as France’s greatest living composer

1969 – Deathday of Rudolf Hauschka, an Austrian chemist, author, inventor, entrepreneur & anthroposophist. He was the founder of the company Wala Heilmittel GmbH & inventor of a “rhythmic” production process that excluded the use of alcohol as a preservative of plant extracts & can preserve the extract for over 30 years. ‘Dr. Hauschka’ is the brand name given to the range of skin care & cosmetics made by the Wala company from his research

1973 – The Endangered Species Act is passed in the United States

1989 – Earthquake hits Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, killing 1113 people

2009 – 143 people die in a suicide bombing in Karachi, Pakistan, where Shia Muslims are observing the Day of Ashura

2010 – Arab Spring: Popular protests begin in Algeria against the government

2014 – Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 crashes into the Karimata Strait en route from Surabaya to Singapore, killing all 162 people aboard

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5^th Holy Night: December 28-29, Constellation of Scorpio, Scorpion/Eagle (ruling the genitals) The Sphere of the Exusiai, the ‘Elohim’, Spirits of Form, Powers – Virtue: Patience becomes understanding

The Spirits of Form working from the region of the Scorpion/Eagle preserved & regulated all that was accomplished on Old Saturn by the Higher Hierarchies. Then, as Rudolf Steiner explains, in the Old Testament, these 7 ‘Elohim’ who’s chief Jehovah, sacrificed his abode on the Sun to become the regent of the Moon, acted as the creator god.

In the Atlantis-epoch, when the human being faced a distortion of the 7 vital organs from the adversarial powers, that would have made our organs selfishly fight against each other, there was a need for the 2^nd pre-earthly deed of Christ. Working in the realm of the Elohim with the Nathan Soul, Christ sacrificed his etheric forces so that human language could be objective – able to channel creatively the word of god in truth.

When I look around at society today, I ask myself: Was this sacrifice in vain? How can we honor this divine gift of speech & bring it back into sacredness?

Today the Elohim form the body of the Sun, & so light is their lowest manifestation – like an outer garment, while their essence is related to spiritual light. When the human ego uses these divine gifts of, uprightness, speech & thinking, to further our evolution, we are also striving toward this spiritual light. We see this in the imagination of the soaring eagle. But those that are selfish & seek to hide from the light, echo the image of the scorpion.

In Leonardo da Vini’s Last Supper, we see a picture of these 2 polarities in the nature of Judas & John the Evangelist within the Zodiacal Circle of personalities around The Christ.

It is interesting to think that after the Spirits of Form, working from the constellation of Scorpio, had endowed the human being with the possibility of the Higher Ego, there occurred the division of humanity into to 2 sexes.

The result of this was that some forces which had been used to reproduce could then be employed to form the human brain, which became the physical foundation for our Ego-Consciousness. One of the consequences of this was that there became the possibly for the substance of Love to be distorted – a confusion between spiritual love & sensual love. To enter selfishly into the astral realm we run the danger of falling under the influence of certain demonic beings which threaten humanity with a total darkening of ego-consciousness; where the scorpion stings itself to death.

In contrast to this we see the eagle in St. John, leaning on the breast of Christ-Jesus – the 1^st to be initiated into the Christened Initiation of the ‘Word’. As Christian Rosenkreutz, this enigmatic individuality continues to work with The Christ in His aspect of Lord of Karma, to assist those who are striving to rise to the highest levels of the Eagle-Ego.

Can we approach the New Year with the desire to transform the selfish scorpion into the far-reaching sight of the Eagle, & the Peace of the Dove? To let our speech be light-filled, in-forming the highest ideal, with Good Will & Patient Love!

See you in the striving

Xox  ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

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27 December 2016 – Astro-Weather: Venus now stays up a full two hours after complete darkness.  So you have plenty of time this evening to notice that just to Venus’s left is little Delta Capricorni. And below Venus by is fainter Gamma Capricori.

The name The ‘Summer Triangle’ must seem like a huge misnomer since this asterism remains on view after darkness falls in late December. Look for Vega, the fifth-brightest star in the sky & the brightest triangle member, in the northwest after nightfall. Deneb lies above Vega & about halfway to the zenith. Deneb marks the top of another asterism, the Northern Cross, which stands nearly straight up from the horizon on December evenings. Altair, the third triangle member, appears due west & near the same altitude as Vega. The trio remains on view until Altair sets just before 7pm CST

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Marie Steiner von Sivers

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

“The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence.” ~T.S. Eliot

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast Day of St. John the apostle. Rudolf Steiner speaks of an earlier incarnation as Hiram (GA 93, 264,265)

5^th Century – Feast day of Saint Nicarete a woman of Nicomedia who became a saint as a disciple of St. John Chrysostom. She left her home specifically to study theology & practice devotion & care for the poor in Constantinople. She became a follower of John Chrysostom & worked as a physician as well as a healer for the poor. She cured John Chrysostom of a stomach ailment. Later, when Chrysostom was sent into exile from Constantinople, she went with him

537 – The Hagia Sophia is completed

1521 – The Zwickau prophets arrive in Wittenberg disturbing the peace & preaching the Apocalypse. Philip Melanchthon cannot silence them. Martin Luther is being held in protective custody at the Wartburg castle at this time. He is later released & is able, by his preaching, to regain the peace

carolla13

1571 – Birthday of Johannes Kepler, German mathematician, astronomer, & astrologer. “Johannes Kepler was as much a natural scientist of an earlier time as of a later one. He drew his thoughts from external observation, but in his inner experience he had an absolute feeling that spiritual Beings are there when man is receiving his thoughts from Nature. Kepler felt himself to be partly an Initiate, and for him it was a matter of course that he experienced his abstract building up of the universe artistically.It is extraordinarily valuable, from a scientific point of view, to immerse oneself in the progress human thought has made through such a man as Kepler. But one is more deeply stirred when one steeps oneself in Kepler’s life of soul, in that soul-life which in later times did not work with such intensity and inwardness in any other natural scientist, certainly not in any authoritative teacher of mankind at large. For between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries the feeling was entirely lost that through thought the human soul is brought into connection with the divine-spiritual.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Younger Generation: Lecture VIII, 1922 see also Christ and the Spiritual World: The Search for the Holy Grail, 1914

1822 – Birthday of Louis Pasteur, French chemist & microbiologist

1918 – The Great Poland Uprising against the Germans begins

1929 – Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin orders the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class”

1935 – Regina Jonas is ordained as the first female rabbi in the history of Judaism

1939 – The Erzincan earthquake shakes eastern Turkey. At least 32,700 people were killed

1945 – The International Monetary Fund is created with the signing of an agreement by 29 nations

1948 – Deathday of Marie Steiner von Sivers – wife of Rudolf Steiner & one of his closest colleagues. She made a great contribution to the development of anthroposophy, particularly in her work on the renewal of the performing arts – speech & drama, & the new art of eurythmy. She was also chief editor & publisher of Rudolf Steiner’s literary estate.

Marie von Sivers was born to an aristocratic family in Włocławek, Poland, then part of Imperial Russia. She was well-educated & was fluent in Russian, German, English, French & Italian. She studied theater & recitation with several teachers in Europe.

Marie von Sivers “appeared one day” at one of Rudolf Steiner’s early lectures in 1900. In the autumn of 1901, she posed the question to Steiner, “Would it be possible to create a spiritual movement based on European tradition and the impetus of Christ?” Rudolf Steiner later reported: With this, I was given the opportunity to act in a way that I had only previously imagined. The question had been put to me, and now, according to spiritual laws, I could begin to answer it.

Marie von Sivers collaborated with Steiner for the rest of his life & carried his work beyond his death in 1925 until her own death in 1948. She accompanied him & helped him as secretary, translator, editor, & organizer of his lecture tours & other public activities. She assisted Steiner’s work with her own resources & in 1908 founded the Philosophical-Theosophical Press (later Philosophical-Anthroposophical) to publish Steiner’s work.

Starting in 1912, Rudolf Steiner developed the art of eurythmy. With Marie’s guidance, it developed in three directions: as a stage art, as an integral part of Waldorf pedagogy, &as a therapeutic method. Under her tutelage, two schools of eurythmy were founded, in Berlin & in Dornach, Switzerland.

Marie von Sivers, made a study of purely artistic speaking. She gave introductory poetry recitals at Steiner’s lectures & assisted him in the development of the four Mystery Dramas (1910-1913). With her help, Steiner conducted several speech & drama courses with the aim of raising these forms to the level of true art.

On 24 December 1914, von Sivers married Rudolf Steiner. Beginning in 1914, Steiner drew up a succession of wills naming Marie Steiner-von Sivers as heir to his entire work & property & his successor in the leadership of the anthroposophical movement.

In GA 12, 27, 126 1910 Rudolf Steiner speaks of her earlier incarnations as Hypatia & Abertus Magnus

1968 –Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first orbital manned mission to the Moon

1978 – Spain becomes a democracy after 40 years of fascist dictatorship

1979 – The Soviet Union invades the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan

2008 –The Gaza War, also known as Operation Cast Lead or the Gaza Massacre. Israel launches a three-week armed conflict against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip & Israel

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 4th Holy Night:  Feast of St. John, Constellation of Sagittarius, Centaur/Archer (ruling the hips & thighs) The Sphere of the Archai, Principalities, Spirits of Personality

The Greek word Archai literally means ‘Beginnings’. Rudolf Steiner gives as the German equivalent Urbeginne: Ur-beginnings, First Beginnings, Primal Beginnings. They are the Beings who attained the human stage at the beginning of our evolutionary cycle, on Old Saturn. Their guidance can be illustrated thru the example of the child overcoming the forces that pull us toward the earth, moving from the crawling stage, learning to stand upright, & then walking – a victory of our human nature over the animal nature. In Dr. Steiner’s lectures on the Apocalypse of St. John, they are described as the eldest of the ‘Elders’ of mankind.

This relates to the 1^st of the pre-earthly deeds of Christ, made in connection with the Nathan Soul in the realm of the Archai. This sacrifice occurred in the Lemuria epoch when humanity was 1^st assuming an upright position. The counter force to this uprightness disconnected human beings from the spiritual forces of the earth, making it possible for adversarial powers working against the true path of development, to bring disarray to the 12 sense organs. Christ had to descend from his lofty heights to overcome this threat, working thru the Nathan Soul who later incarnated as Jesus of the Luke Gospel, to harmonize the forces of the 12 Zodiac.

Then on Old Sun, the Archai were connected with the forces of thinking in relation to the physical brain. Now, their task is to bestow on humanity the forces necessary for ego-consciousness to arise thru thought, signified by the Archers arrow within the bow. Another name for the Archai is ‘Spirits of Personality’ since Ego consciousness is individualized to become the personality.

Humanity will have the possibility of gaining something of the impulses of Spirit-Man when the point of the Spring Equinox moves into the region of the Archer – revealed simultaneously with its counter-image – the ‘War of All against All’. At that time humanity will divide into 2 main ‘races’ –  those that will hold the animal qualities of the Centaur & those that stand upright, setting the arrow of thought into motion as the Archer.

The imagination of the arrow that has been consciously released from the bow is a picture of the human will directed towards a definite purpose. The final aim of the whole of earthly evolution is the attainment of the Vulcan condition – when humanity will rise to that plane on which the Spirits of Personality -The Archai – stand at the present time.

Are we willing to develop our aim to the service of that sublime Christ-Revelation which will descend at that time to the Earth thru these Spiritual Beings who serve the Christ & guide humanity to this mighty impulse?

 ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

  Jane Gadd

Virtue: Control of speech & thinking (minding one’s tongue) becomes a feeling for the truth

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26 December 2016 – Astro-Weather: The brightest star in the sky (after our Sun, of course) puts on quite a show on December evenings. Gleaming Sirius is nearly 4x’s brighter than the next brightest star – Arcturus in the constellation Boötes. Sirius rises before 6:30pm CST & ascends in the southeast throughout the evening hours

Before 2017 even begins, you can catch the very beginning of the apparition of Saturn & Antares which will culminate in the summer. In the early dawn tomorrow, the 27th, if the air is clear, go out & look very low in the southeast. Saturn is below the thin waning crescent Moon, & twinkly Antares is off to their right

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Pascal Dagnan Bouveret

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

“The soul of the seer lives on from the festival of Jesus’ birth to that of the Epiphany in such a way that the Christ Mystery is revealed. It is during these Thirteen Holy Days and Nights that the soul can grasp most deeply of all, the import and meaning of the Baptism by John in the Jordan.” ~ The Birth of the Sun-Spirit as the Spirit of the Earth – THE THIRTEEN HOLY NIGHTS, Hanover, 26th December, 1911

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast of St. Stephen venerated as the Proto-martyr or first martyr of Christianity. According to the Acts of the Apostles he was a deacon in the early church at Jerusalem who aroused the enmity of members of various synagogues by his teachings. Accused of blasphemy, at his trial he made a long speech denouncing the Jewish authorities who were sitting in judgment on him & was then stoned to death. His martyrdom was witnessed by Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee who would later himself become a follower of Jesus

3^rd day of Hanukkah

Mummer’s Day, or ” Darking Day” is an ancient Cornish midwinter celebration that occurs every year on Boxing Day in Cornwall. It was originally part of the pagan heritage of midwinter celebrations that were regularly celebrated, where people would take part in the traditional custom of guise dancing, which involves disguising themselves by painting their faces or wearing masks

Boxing Day is a holiday celebrated the day after Christmas Day on which post-men, errand-boys, & servants of various kinds expect to receive a ‘Christmas-box’. It originated in the United Kingdom, but is very popular in Canada, where this was the day to exchange gifts, or return the ones not wanted

1^st Day of Kwanzaa – a week-long celebration that honors African heritage, culminating in a feast & gift-giving. It was created by Maulana Karenga and was first celebrated in 1966–67. Seven candles in a candelabra symbolize the seven principles of Kwanzaa:

Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.

Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define and name ourselves, as well as to create and speak for ourselves.

Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems and to solve them together.

Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.

Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle

1799 – Four thousand people attend George Washington’s funeral where Henry Lee III declares him as “first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen”

1991 – The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union meets and formally dissolves the Soviet Union

2003 – The 6.6 Mw Bam earthquake shakes southeastern Iran leaving more than 26,000 dead & 30,000 injured

2004 – The 9.1–9.3 Mw Indian Ocean earthquake shakes northern Sumatra. One of the largest observed tsunamis follows, affecting the coastal areas of Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, &  Indonesia; death toll is between 230,000–280,000

2006 – An oil pipeline in Lagos, Nigeria explodes, killing at least 260 people

2009 – China opens the world’s longest high-speed rail route, which links Beijing & Guangzhou

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 Van James

3rd Holy Night: Boxing Day – Feast of St. Steven, Constellation of Capricorn, The Goat (ruling the knees & bones) The Sphere of the Archangel, Fire-Spirits

The birth of Jesus could only occur in the seasonal round during the influence of Capricorn, when the Earth is frozen & dark, ie. purified of the Ahrimanic forces, with the light of the outer Sun, focused into Spiritual Sun within. These forces were gifted to us from the Archangels on Old Sun. So whenever we perceive light, with our eyes, or with our hearts, the Archangels are behind it.

So today, here in Chicago, with the weather in the 50’s – I can’t help thinking of this Steiner quote from The Cycle of the Year:  “While the summer out-breathing occurred, the Earth was ahrimanized. Woe if Jesus had been born into this ahrimanized Earth! Before the cycle is completed again and December approaches, which brings about the birth of the Christ Impulse in the ensouled Earth, the Earth must be purified by spiritual forces, from the Dragon, from the Ahrimanic forces. And the purifying force of Michael, which subdues the evil Ahrimanic forces, must unite itself, from September into December, with the in-flowing earth breath, so that the Christmas festival may approach in the right way, and the birth of the Christ Impulse take place in the right way…”

Is this global warming a sign of the coming incarnation of Ahriman in the West?

Chris Manvell

This push of activity from Ahriman manifests itself every year in the sphere of the Goat, where he is the chief antagonist of the 12 Archangels. Ahriman hopes ever & again at this darkest & coldest time of the year to prevent the rising of the spiritual sun in the earthly sphere. And every year he is overcome by the Archangel Michael so that the Christ Sun may rise for the earth. How can we as Michaelites help in this endeavor?

We see this image of Ahriman depicted, especially in the Middle Ages, thru the imagination of ‘Satan’ portrayed with the horns & lower body of a goat -all the negative characteristics of the animal nature – a tradition followed by Goethe in his character of Mephistopheles with cloven feet.

Interesting to think that the 7th American cultural epoch will stand under the sign of the goat. How can we prepare the way in the purity of the ideal?

The 12 Archangels were the 1^st beings to receive the Christ into themselves during the epoch of Ancient Persia. The Persians knew that the 12 Archangelic Beings, operating from the 12 signs of the Zodiac, work thru the 12 main nerves that connect the human brain with the rest of our body, in order to gradually summon forth what appears today as our intelligence. And Human intelligence is most awake, most light filled, precisely at the time of the year which stands under the rulership of the cosmic forces proceeding from the region of the goat.

Zarathustra (who later became the Matthew Jesus) called them the 12 Amshaspands, the envoys of the great Sun-Spirit Ahura-Mazdao, & described them as a kind of cosmic aura surrounding the Sun, holding the Christ-Impulse that was to be born in the sphere of Earth.

Capricorn is connected to the knee.  So when we kneel in prayer, we spiritualize our speech. Bending the knee is a sign of reverence, helping us draw near to the Archangels who rule the element of speech.

According to spiritual science, in the Venus epoch there will arise from the knee-cap, the outer form of the human head.

The Archangels worked thru the 12 disciples as their representatives.  In our time these Beings are the inspirers of the Holy Nights.

Each of the Archangels have their own qualities. The Archangel Gabriel had the task of bringing the divine forces to bear in the womb of Mary

May we bend our knee to speak from spirit-fired, christened heads & hearts

xox~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Virtue: Courage becomes the power of redemption

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