18 September 2016 – Astro-Weather: About a half hour after sunset, you shouldn’t have much trouble spotting Venus very low in the west-southwest through the twilight, if you have a clear view down that low. But can you see twinkly little Spica there beneath Venus, perhaps as twilight fades further?
The Moon reaches perigee, the closest point in its orbit around Earth, at exactly noon CDT. It is then 224,872 miles from us.
Stones to Bread: Mars conjuncts the star Lesath in Scorpio’s stinger, & Venus conjuncts the star Spica, the sheaf of wheat of the Virgin.
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Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction. ~ Ray Bradbury
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
900- Feast Day of Saint Richardis, was the Holy Roman Empress, born in Alsace. She married Charles the Fat & was crowned with him in Rome by Pope John VIII The marriage was childless.
Charles’ reign was marked by internal and external strife, caused primarily by the constant plundering of Norman raiders on the northern French coast. By 887, Charles appears to have succumbed to fits of madness. During this crisis, Richardis attempted to rule in her husband’s stead, but was unsuccessful. In an effort to bring down the over-powerful and hated Liutward, Charles’ archchancellor, he & Richardis were accused by Charles of adultery. Charles asserted that their marriage was unconsummated & demanded a divorce.
In a bid to assure him of her innocence, she finally assented to an ordeal by fire. Barefoot, & wearing a shirt covered in wax, the flames nevertheless refused to touch her. Disheartened by her husband’s continued mistrust, Richardis left the imperial palace & wandered into the forest. There she was visited by an angel, who ordered her to found a convent in a certain spot, which a bear would indicate to her. In Val d’Eleon, at the banks of the river, she saw a bear scratching in the dirt. There she built the abbey of Andlau.
An alternative legend recounts that Richardis found the mother bear grieving over her dead cub in the forest. When Richardis held the cub, it returned to life. After the working of this miracle, both mother & cub remained devoted to the saint for the rest of their lives.
1793 – The first cornerstone of the Capitol building is laid by George Washington
1812 – The 1812 Fire of Moscow dies down after destroying more than three-quarters of the city. Napoleon returns from the Petrovsky Palace to the Moscow Kremlin, spared from the fire.
1850 – The Fugitive Slave Act passed by the United States Congress as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave-holding interests & Northern Free-Soilers. It required that all escaped slaves were, upon capture, to be returned to their masters & that officials & citizens of free states had to cooperate in this law. Abolitionists nicknamed it the “Bloodhound Law” for the dogs that were used to track down runaway slaves
1851 – First publication of The New-York Daily Times, which later becomes The New York Times
1873 – Panic of 1873: The U.S. bank Jay Cooke & Company declares bankruptcy, triggering a series of bank failures.
1882 – The Pacific Stock Exchange opens.
1895 – Booker T. Washington delivers the “Atlanta compromise” address. The agreement was that Southern blacks would work &submit to white political rule, while Southern whites guaranteed that blacks would receive basic education & due process in law. Blacks would not agitate for equality, integration, or justice, & Northern whites would fund black educational charities
1906 – A typhoon with tsunami kills an estimated 10,000 people in Hong Kong
1909 – 1st mention by Rudolf Steiner of the two Jesus Children. GA 114
1910 – In Amsterdam, 25,000 demonstrate for general suffrage
1916 – 1st lecture by Rudolf Steiner on the Mexican Mysteries
1919 – The Netherlands gives women the right to vote
1927 – The Columbia Broadcasting System goes on the air
1936 – Deathday of Konrad Burdach,
1939 – The Nazi propaganda broadcaster known as Lord Haw-Haw begins transmitting.
1940 – The British liner SS City of Benares is sunk by German submarine U-48; those killed include 77 child refugees
1943 – World War II: The Jews of Minsk are massacred at Sobibór
1944 – World War II: The British submarine HMS Tradewind torpedoes Jun’yō Maru, 5,600 killed
1947 – The National Security Council & the Central Intelligence Agency are established in the United States under the National Security Act
1960 – Fidel Castro arrives in New York City as the head of the Cuban delegation to the United Nations
1962 – Deathday of Therese Neumann, mystic, stigmatic
1988 – End of pro-democracy uprisings in Myanmar after a bloody military coup. Thousands, mostly monks & civilians (primarily students), are killed
2001 – First mailing of anthrax letters from Trenton, New Jersey in the 2001 anthrax attacks.
2007 – Buddhist monks join anti-government protesters in Myanmar, starting what some call the Saffron Revolution
Lectures by Rudolf Steiner on this date
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Calendar of the Soul Twenty-sixth Week (9-17-16 to 9-23-16)
O Nature, your maternal life
I bear within the essence of my will.
And my will’s fiery energy
Shall steel my spirit striving,
That sense of self springs forth from it
To hold me in myself.
~Rudolf Steiner
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Ideas are for Anthroposophy
Vessels, formed out of love,
Into which the being of humanity, spiritually,
Is brought from the spiritual worlds.
Clothed in thoughts formed with love
The light of true humanity
Shall shine through Anthroposophy.
And knowledge is but the form
In which through humanity
It shall be possible
That the true spirit from the widths of the world
Will focus in human hearts
It may enlighten human thought.
And as Anthroposophy
Really can only be grasped through love,
Therefore it is love creating
If it is grasped by the true being of humanity.
Therefore, in the midst of furious hatred
A place of love could be built in Dornach.
And words
Will not be coined in the Anthroposophical realm
As they are usually coined today.
Words are formed
That are all intrinsically pleas.
Every word in Anthroposophy
If it is spoken in the right sense
Is fundamentally a plea
A reverent plea:
A plea
That the spirit may come down to humankind.
~ Rudolf Steiner, From the 1922 The Christmas Foundation; Beginning of a Cosmic Age
May Human Beings Hear it…XOX ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg