15 September 2017 – Astro-Weather: This evening Saturn’s biggest & brightest moon, Titan, glimmers to the East of Saturn.
Brightening Mercury & faint Mars are almost kissing, close as they are, low in the east before dawn on Saturday morning the 16th
Venus, Regulus, Mercury, Mars in the dawn, Sept. 17, 2017, and again the next morning. The Moon and Venus show the way.
Venus, Regulus, Moon, Mars and Mercury in the dawn of Sept. 18, 2017. Then the thin Moon poses between the two pairs of points . . .
Venus, Regulus, Mars, Mercury & extremely thin, old Moon in the dawn of Sept. 19, 2017, and the next morning, Venus & Regulus pair up.
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Lectures by Rudolf Steiner on this date
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
The feast of Our Lady of Sorrows (Latin: Mater Dolorosa) The Seven Sorrows (or Dolors) are events in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary:
- The Prophecy of Simeon. (Luke2:34–35)
- The escape and Flight into Egypt. (Matthew2:13)
- The Loss of the Child Jesusin the Temple of Jerusalem. (Luke 2:43–45)
- The Meeting of Mary and Jesus on the Via Dolorosa.
- The Crucifixion of Jesuson Mount Calvary. (John 19:25)
- The Piercing of the Side of Jesus, and His Descent from the Cross. (Matthew 27)
- The Burial of Jesusby Joseph of Arimathea. (John 19:40–42)
668 – Eastern Roman Emperor Constans II is assassinated in his bath at Syracuse, Italy.
921 – At Tetin, Saint Ludmila, a Czech saint, the grandmother of Saint Wenceslaus, widely referred to as Good King Wenceslaus, is murdered at the command of her daughter-in-law, Drahomíra, who was jealous of Ludmila’s influence over Wenceslaus. Antonín Dvořák composed his oratorio Svatá Ludmila for her
1254 – Birthday of Marco Polo, Italian merchant & explorer
1616 – The first non-aristocratic, free public school in Europe is opened in Frascati, Italy
1821 – Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, & Costa Rica jointly declare independence from Spain
1916 –Tanks are used for the first time in battle, at the Battle of the Somme World War I
1935 – The Nuremberg Laws deprive German Jews of citizenship
1935 – Nazi Germany adopts a new national flag bearing the swastika
1944 – Franklin D. Roosevelt & Winston Churchill meet in Quebec as part of the World War II Octagon Conference to discuss strategy.
1945 – A hurricane strikes southern Florida & the Bahamas, destroying 366 airplanes & 25 blimps at Naval Air Station Richmond, 230 die
1947 – Typhoon Kathleen hit the Kanto Region in Japan killing 1,077
1961 – Hurricane Carla strikes Texas with winds of 175 miles per hour, kills 23
1963 – 16th Street Baptist Church bombing , an act of white supremacist terrorism, in Birmingham, Alabama, occurred when four members of the Ku Klux Klan planted at least 15 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the front steps of the church.Described by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as “one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity”. The explosion killed four girls & injured 22 others.
No prosecutions ensued of the Klan members involved until 1977, when Robert Chambliss was tried & convicted of the first degree murder of one of the victims, 11-year-old Carol Denise McNair. Thomas Blanton & Bobby Cherry were each convicted of four counts of murder & sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 & 2002, but Herman Cash, was never charged .
The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing marked a turning point in the United States during the Civil Rights Movement & contributed to support for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
1966 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to a sniper attack at the University of Texas at Austin, writes a letter to Congress urging the enactment of gun control legislation
1968 – The Soviet Zond 5 spaceship is launched, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere
1971 – The first Greenpeace ship sets sail to protest against nuclear testing on Amchitka Island
1972 – A Scandinavian Airlines System domestic flight is hijacked
1974 – Air Vietnam Flight 706 is hijacked, then crashes while attempting to land with 75 on board
2008 – Lehman Brothers files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history
Free Money Day is an annual, global event held since 2011 as a social experiment to promote sharing & alternative economic ideas. The day is held annually on September 15, the anniversary of the Lehman Brothers’ 2008 filing for bankruptcy. Participants offer their own money to passing strangers at public places, two coins or notes at a time. Recipients are asked to pass on one of the notes or coins to someone else
International Day of Democracy …’democracy is a universal value based on the freely-expressed will of people to determine their own political, economic, social and cultural systems, and their full participation in all aspects of life’
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POD (Poem Of the Day)
~Today i am:
a dung bettle
wandering in the dark, tasting dust, smelling worms,
feeling the ground,
push push pushing the seed of myself…
Today what are you?
~hag
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Your soul is the best friend you keep forgetting you have. It’s closer than your breath & older than death. It dreams like a mountain, laughs like a river, & communicates with you in the exuberantly mysterious style of animals & gods. You are animated because of your soul! It loves you with nonstop unconditional ingenuity. Isn’t it right, then, to devote at least one special day each year to honoring it & giving thanks for its blessings?
Today I have scheduled my Soul Celebration Day:
Dear Soul-Self- Be my slow-motion dance. Be my centennial earthquake. Be my ripe pomegranate floating in a blue plastic swimming pool on the first day of winter. Be my handstand on a barstool, my whirlwind week in clown school, my joke shared with a Siberian shaman while shopping for socks at Wal-Mart. Be my puzzle with one piece missing. Be the waves crashing on a beach in New Zealand in the 22nd century. Be my golden hammer resting on the moss of a ten-million-year-old rock…
This kind of poetic thinking prompts me to ask: What would it be like to take a trip in your imagination to the future, where you will visit the person you’ll be, say 7 years from today? What is the most important message you have to convey to that future Self?
Blessings & Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg
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Dear Friends – What is it you need? What would you like? What can you share? What is your legacy?
Important questions to ponder on this 100 year anniversary of the 3-fold Social Organism; one of the many legacies given to us by Rudolf Steiner, waiting to be fulfilled by us now.
The Economic Life needs our Brother & Sisterhood
The Cultural/Spiritual/Educational Realm calls for Freedom
In the Political or Rights Realm we must foster Equality
“His social theory, based on his profound understanding of the human being, drew upon the ideals of the 1784 French Revolution—liberté (freedom), egalité (equality), fraternité (brotherhood)—yet applied in an unprecedented way…This threesome of practice is the foundation for organizing an empowered self-governing citizenry that would find its authority, responsibility, and accountability through active civic engagement. Further, such a threefold practice would assure that every person matters, and what matters to each person matters to the whole.”*
The Elderberries 3-Fold Café is coming to Chicago in the spirit of Brother & Sisterhood. Are we willing to meet them?
Go to this link to find out more & donate if you will https://igg.me/at/michaelgrailroad/x/17233652
Thanks for supporting the future!
*John Bloom, One Hundred Years: In Recognition of Rudolf Steiner’s Threefold Commonwealth
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Michaelmas & the Horn of Plenty –
Fall Festivals Ancient and New
Saturday September 23rd 2017 – 4 pm – 6 pm
at the Rudolf Steiner Branch, 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago, IL.
The Eleusinian Mysteries –
Art & Mythos by Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Song of Proserpine by Percy Shelley –
Eurythmy with Mary Ruud
Michaelmas ‘The Festival of the Future’ –
Art & Leading Thoughts by Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Copper Rod Eurythmy with Mary Ruud
Singing with Elisabeth Swisher
$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged
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Dear Friends – Please join us for
An Open Conversation with John Bloom
our new General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America
Sunday September 24th 2017
1 pm – 2:30 pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago
All are Welcome to discuss the fate of the Branch Building, the Elderberries Initiative; the state of the Anthroposophical Society today; as well as explore how we can best serve the ‘Being of Chicago.’
John Bloom was appointed General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America in October 2016. He is Vice President, Organizational Culture at RSF Social Finance. As part of his work at RSF he has been developing and facilitating conversations and programs that address the intersection of money and spirit in personal and social transformation. He writes frequently for RSF’s Reimagine Money blog and has fostered collaborative dialogues on the challenging social aspects money. As part of his work he has helped develop awareness of issues of land and biodynamic agriculture across the US. John has written two books, The Genius of Money, and Inhabiting Interdependence, both published by SteinerBooks. He lives in San Francisco.