Harvest Home

O sweet sacrifice, teach me your Love –

Just like in days of old, we come can together, each from our own homestead, farm or condo, we can come together, to help our neighbor gather the 2nd harvest home…


As we enter the time of the grain harvest, a wealth of beauty in nature surrounds us…Mid-Summer has past & the fruits are ripening…now we begin to take this abundance in, digesting & cultivating seeds in our memory.

Like the animal kingdom storing food for a barren winter, we store the meaning of Summer’s richness within our souls, harvesting with a discerning eye – full of appreciation & compassion for our current crop – looking ahead to the next harvest…

Learning from our endeavors…we take the late Summers gifts into our heart & soul & belly – we know, that like the season’s inevitable movement, one into the next, we too are always becoming…We are always creating, always moving from the already been, to the not yet, always strengthening in the present what will happen in the soon to be…& as we do this, we give ourselves a gift grander than any earthly gift…We reap truth… We give ourselves to our Self…

We need the outer world of nature to understand our inner nature…just as we need both the in-breath & the out-breath, we need to see what we are in the world, to see our authentic Self & purpose…

We stand at the Cross-quarter a powerful turning point on the wheel of the year…between the Summer Solstice & the Fall equinox…we have breathed out into the lushness of Summer…& now we can hold the memory of Summer within us – as soul strength – as we prepare to turn inward during the winter’s long in-breathing…

We know that as we feel our existence in the world, we are a part of an ongoing cosmic dance…the endless dance of becoming…& we feel the stirrings of our soul longing to be gathered in…We know we must feed the inner fruit, at the same time that we harvest the earth, which in turn feeds the World Soul…


Invisibly & silently, the cosmic light is moving into each of us, just as it goes into the grain, preparing us for the threshing floor…even as we nourish our bodies from the fruits of the earth, we become the fruit that will sustain the Soul of the World…it is a dance of being & becoming, waxing & waning, feeding & being fed…Such is the dance of life…

Some Divine Archetypes to tap into:



Lugh the Long Arm – This festival is also called “Lugnasadh” (Loo-nah-sah), “nasadh” Gaelic, “to give in marriage,” Tailltean marriage.

Demeter (the Greek version of the Roman goddess Ceres = cereal) is the goddess of grain. It is her job to feed the world. After her reunion with her daughter Persphone, Demeter gave the gift of agriculture to humankind, so we could cultivate for ourselves.

Freya on the Boar – The boar as totem personified prosperity, vitality & ceremonial feasting for both the Norse & Celts also represented the time before agriculture, when food was foraged, the Boar is a great forger. Freya riding the Boar is a symbol of the cultivated grain overcoming the old ways of hunting & gathering.

creativecommons

Born from a tree that was gouged open by a boar, Adonis was later killed by a boar, he is an example of the dying vegetation god, sacrificed so that all may live.

Henry Meynell Rheam

Danu – Irish Goddess of fertility & plenty, Mother of the fairies – the force that turns the flower to the sun.


John Barleycorn” is a personification of the important cereal crop barley, & of the spirit beverages made from it, beer & whiskey. In the old English song, “John Barley Corn must die”, He is represented as suffering attacks, death, & indignities that correspond to the various stages of barley cultivation, such as reaping & malting – emulating also the passion of The Christos.

John Barleycorn represents the ideology of nature’s cycles, the spirit within nature, & the harvest. As a result of his being cut down, bread can be produced; therefore, Barleycorn dies so that others may live. His body eaten as bread.

The Empress –represents the Mother principle, referring to reproduction & growth; she sets all things in order. Symbolic of Venus & the material world, she rules the senses, teaching us to appreciate beauty in all forms. She is the figure of Creative Imagination, displaying the art of visualization. She is fertile & nurturing, providing the means to attract our desires. Confer with The Empress to increase creativity, manifest prosperity, & magnetize love…She is a wise woman who makes decisions based on her intuition & the facts at hand. She is a woman who can be forceful & strong willed in her position of authority…She is a business-woman who is level-headed & practical but she is also kind & charitable, one who instills confidence & nurtures others. She is a role model. The throne of The Empress is built of endurance, tenacity, loyalty & sheer determination…

I am The Empress, I celebrate this knowing,
I am The Empress, I am ripe, I am growing…

Abundant Blessings of Lammas
& Peace –
~hag

PS. Gather the seeds you want to save, & feed the rest to the birds of the air…Thank the Farmer (Bless you Farmer John & your Biodynamic abundance https://angelicorganics.com/ ) & enjoy the feast…!!!

xox

Vali Irina Ciobanu

2 August 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: With the advance of Summer the Sagittarius Teapot, in the south after dark now, is tilting and pouring from its spout to the right. The Teapot will tilt farther and farther for the rest of the summer — or for much of the night if you stay out late.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

An ethical misunderstanding, a clash, is impossible among ethically free human beings. Only someone who is ethically unfree, who obeys natural drives or the conventional demands of duty, will thrust aside someone who does not follow the same instincts and the same demands. To live in love of action, and to let live in understanding of the other’s will, is the fundamental maxim of free human beings. — Rudolf Steiner, The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

216 BC – The Carthaginian army led by Hannibal defeats a numerically superior Roman army at the Battle of Cannae

Feast day of “The Virgen de los Angeles” (the Virgin of the Angels) is Costa Rica’s patron saint, also known as La Negrita. According to tradition, La Negrita, the Black Virgin, is a small (less than a meter tall), representation of the Virgin Mary found on this spot on August 2, 1635 by a native woman. As the story goes, when she tried to take the statuette with her, it miraculously reappeared twice back where she’d found it. The townspeople then built a shrine around her. In 1824, the Virgin was declared Costa Rica’s patron saint. La Negrita now resides on a gold, jewel-studded platform at the main altar in the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles in Cartago. Each August 2, on the anniversary of the statuette’s miraculous discovery, pilgrims from every corner of the country (and beyond) walk the 22 km from San José to the basilica. Many of the penitent complete the last few hundred meters of the pilgrimage on their knees.

1832- Birthday of Henry Steel Olcott – an American military officer, journalist, lawyer & the co-founder & 1st President of the Theosophical Society. Olcott was the first well-known American of European ancestry to make a formal conversion to Buddhism. From 1874 on, Olcott’s spiritual growth & development with Helena Blavatsky & other spiritual leaders would lead to the founding of the Theosophical Society. In 1875, Olcott, Blavatsky, & others, notably William Quan Judge, formed the Theosophical Society in New York City. Olcott financially supported the earliest years of the Theosophical Society & was acting President while Blavatsky served as the Society’s Secretary. In December 1878, they left New York in order to move the headquarters of the Society to India.

1921 – Birthday of Enrico Caruso, Italian tenor & actor

1922 – Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-Canadian engineer, invented the telephone

1922 – A typhoon hits Shantou, Republic of China killing more than 50,000 people

1924 – The last of Rudolf Steiner’s “19 Class Lessons” was given in Dornach.

1934 – Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany following the death of President Paul von Hindenburg

1939 – Albert Einstein & Leo Szilard write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear weapon

1943 – Jewish prisoners stage a revolt at Treblinka, one of the deadliest of Nazi death camps where approximately 900,000 persons were murdered in less than 18 months

1968 – Deathday of Antonio d’Achille , Aquinas scholar

1969 – Deathday of Anna Samweber – an active co-worker in Berlin with Rudolf Steiner and Marie Steiner-von Sivers. Her anecdotes & recollections were recorded by Jacob Streit during an intensive two days shortly before Anna’s death. They contribute a warm & intimate picture of Rudolf Steiner, the man, & his work. “Frau Dr Steiner owned a lovely diamond watch with her initials inscribed on the lid. It was broken, and I had to take it to a well-known watchmaker who lived a long way from the Motzstrasse (the house at 17 Motzstrasse in Berlin was where Rudolf and Marie Steiner lived from 1903 – 1913, and where the work of the Anthroposophical Society was carried on). It was late on a cold and foggy November evening when I made my way in the direction of Nollendorfplatz, where the building site for a subway was situated. I was walking along a long, wooden blank wall when suddenly two human shapes appeared from the dark and attacked me. I remembered that once Rudolf Steiner had told me that if ever I was in need I could call on him. So when these two attackers went for me, the one holding me from behind so that the other could rob me, I called inwardly and spontaneously: ‘Doctor, help me!’ At the same moment both fellows fell back like lightning and were gone. When Rudolf Steiner came for breakfast the next morning he greeted me with the words ‘Good morning, Sam. What was the matter that you cried so loud last night?’ When I told him about my experience and he had listened quietly, he said simply: ‘But I did help you, didn’t I?’ “ ~Anna Samweber from her book Erinnerungen an Rudolf Steiner (Reminiscences of Rudolf Steiner)

***

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is sag2_1024x1024.jpg
Tashina Suzuki

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~i am the reed from which words flow…
the honey i’ve tasted, the lips i’ve kissed
have all left their marks upon me…
this body is the book of all i remember
open me ever wider
beloved, i am yours…
~hag

2 thoughts on “Harvest Home

  1. Sweet, sweet POD. Thank you Hag, for consuming so much heaven-sent nectar to give to us such sweet words. Think I’ll listen to a special song, “Holy and Anointed One”, a song to the Beloved, with the memorable line “Your name is like honey on my lips”.

Leave a Reply to Hazel Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.