Greetings friends on this Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ, a cosmic metamorphosis that prepared the way for the deed on Golgotha & was a pre-figuration of the Ascension.
“We find the transfiguration scene in all the evangelists except St. John. This is significant. Let us clarify the meaning of this scene. What takes place? Jesus goes with three disciples Peter, James and John, up a mountain: this means into the inner sanctuary where one is initiated into higher worlds and where one also speaks in occult language. The disciples were carried up into a higher state of consciousness. They saw then that which is not transitory but eternal. Moses and Elias appear and Jesus himself with them. What does this mean? In occult science the word Elias means the same as El — god the goal – the way. Moses is the spiritual scientific word for truth. By the fact that Elias, Moses and Jesus appear, you have the fundamental Christian truth: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. Jesus himself says — this is a fundamental Christian mystical truth — “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” (John, ch. 14, v. 6) ~ Rudolf Steiner, The Gospel of St. John, 3rd Lecture
Today in 70 AD- The Second Temple of Jerusalem is destroyed by Roman legions under Titus. For 420 years, the 2nd Temple constituted a divine presence – the point where heaven & earth met.
6 August is also the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, an act of genocide on US President Harry Truman’s orders.
I think of all those souls who crossed the threshold together, at that time. How
will their sacrifice bear fruit…?
Krishna with Aruna in the Bhagavad Gita:
“A thousand simultaneous suns
Arising in the sky
Might equal that great radiance,
With that great glory vie.”
Interesting to contemplate these pivotal events today in 2021 which occur on the actual astrological cross-quarter date of Lammas (Loaf-mass) when the Sun enters 15 degrees of fiery Leo the Lion (in the tropical zodiac) – the exact midpoint between Summer Solstice & the Autumnal Equinox – a time of harvest, when the plant is sacrificed to make the bread.
“The king is dead love live the king”.
We stand now also in the dark of the Moon (New Moon & Islamic New Year 8 Aug) on the edge of the Perseid Meteor Showers which peak in a few days…
Those of us working in the Sophia Group & the planning committee for the ‘Sophia Conference’ happening in the Spring of 2022 are especially attuned to this duel anniversary since the location of the conference will be in New Mexico where the atomic bomb was engineered & tested. The site chosen was a remote corner of the desert, south of Los Alamos, New Mexico, known as the “Jornada del Muerto,” or “Journey of Death.” Robert Oppenheimer named the site of the testing “Trinity” inspired by the poems of John Donne.
In the juxtaposition of these 2 world changing events we see not only the polarity of life & death, but the opportunity to bring the Wisdom of the Sophia in – with her connection to the Holy Spirit of the Trinity – calling in the ‘Healing Medicine that makes whole’ -to avail ourselves to the ‘Advocate, The ‘Comforter’ The ‘Mediator’ with the Being of Love – The Christos.
Together we can redeem & transfigure the fallen light of nuclear death, into the light of Wisdom & Love.
Blessings & Peace –
~hag
THE TRINITY by John Donne
“O blessed glorious Trinity,
Bones to philosophy, but milk to faith,
Which, as wise serpents, diversely
Most slipperiness, yet most entanglings hath,
As you distinguish’d, undistinct,
By power, love, knowledge be,
Give me a such self different instinct,
Of these let all me elemented be,
Of power, to love, to know you unnumbered three.”
Here is an interesting piece about the Transfiguration by Edouard Schure – French philosopher, poet, playwright, novelist, music critic, & publicist of esoteric literature – collaborator with Marie & Rudolf Steiner.
“In every great moment of his life, we see Christ Jesus withdrawing to the mountain to pray. Did not the Vedic sage say, “Prayer sustains heaven and earth and rules the gods?” Jesus knew this power of powers. Usually he did not allow any companion to share the times when he descended into the arcanum of his consciousness. However, on one occasion he led Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, John and James, to a high mountain in order to spend the night there. Tradition has it that the place was Mount Tabor. There that mysterious scene which the Gospels describe under the name The Transfiguration took place between the Master and his three most initiated disciples.
According to Matthew, the Apostles saw the luminous, diaphanous form of the Master appearing, in the transparent shadows of an oriental night, his face shining like the sun, his garments radiant as light. Then two forms, which they took for those of Moses and Elias appeared beside him. Trembling they came out of their strange prostration, which seemed to them like both a deep sleep and an intense waking state. Beside them they saw the Master, who touched them in order to awaken them completely. The transfigured Christ was never erased from their memory.
But what had Jesus himself seen, what had he experienced during that night which preceded the decisive deed of his prophetic career? He passed through a gradual disappearance of earthly things under the fire of prayer and an ascension from sphere to sphere on wings of ecstasy. Slowly it seemed to him that through his deep consciousness he was returning into a previous existence, which was entirely spiritual and divine. Far from him were the suns, worlds, earths, whirlwinds of painful incarnation, while in a homogeneous atmosphere was a fluid substance, an intelligent Light.
In this radiance legions of heavenly beings formed a moving canopy, a firmament of ethereal bodies, white as snow, from which emanated gentle rays of light. On the shining cloud where he himself was standing, six men in priestly clothing and of powerful stature are lifting a gleaming Chalice in their united hands. They are the six Messiahs who already have appeared on earth; the seventh is he himself, and this Cup signifies the Sacrifice which he must experience by becoming incarnate on earth in his turn. Beneath the cloud the thunder rolls, a black abyss opens, the circle of generations, the gulf of life and death, the earthly hell appear before him. With a supplicating gesture the Sons of God elevate the Cup. Heaven waits motionless …
With a gesture of acceptance Jesus spreads his arms in the form of a cross, as though he embraces the world. Then the Sons of God kneel, faces to the ground; angels with long wings and lowered eyes carry the shining Chalice upward into the vault of Light. Hosanna! rings out from heaven to heaven, melodious and ineffable . . . But without even hearing it, he plunges into the abyss …
This is what once took place in the world of Archetypes, in the Bosom of the Father, where the Mysteries of eternal Love are celebrated, and where the movements of the stars pass in waves of living Light. This is what Jesus had sworn to fulfill; this is why he was born, this is why he had struggled upon earth. And now the mighty promise gripped him again at the end of his work, through the fullness of his spiritual consciousness, by means of which he had entered into the revelation of a divine ecstasy.
Deep vow, dread Chalice! Nevertheless, it was necessary to drink from it. After the rapture of ecstasy, he awakened in the depths of the abyss, at the brink of martyrdom. There could be no further doubt; the time had come. Heaven had spoken, earth cried aloud for help.
Then, slowly retracing his steps, Jesus again went down to the valley of the Jordan and took the road to Jerusalem.”
6 August 2021
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~In the cardboard sky
The Thunder gods gather
In a procession of chattering dark wind weavings
Flashing signs of other lives
Royal blue souls in zig-zagging sighs
Stop
Where heat rises like dust after the bomb
To be weighed
In the over-ripe fruit trees
For the transfiguration
~hag
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