The Perseid meteor showers are back, heralding the season of Michael. The shooting stars awaken us. This dose of cosmic iron is the perfect medicine for this uncertain time. We must take it in consciously to strengthen our Michaelic impulse for the spiritual battle ahead.
Perseus is a cosmic starry imagination of Michael. He stands with sword of iron raised in one hand and in the other the decapitated head of Medusa with her serpent hair and eyes that turn all who gaze upon her to stone, symbol of the old clairvoyance. He has rescued Andromeda, the chained princess, from the approaching sea monster Cetus. From the forehead of Andromeda springs the constellation Pegasus, the winged intelligence. This entire narrative contains deep imaginations of the work of Michael in the human being rescuing the threatened human soul from the destructive forces rising from the unconscious and the past in the sea monster and the deadening forces of Ahriman’s cold intellect in the gaze of Medusa.
A study of The Michael Mystery by Steiner can be a helping guide during this season. In it he states: “Hearts begin to have thoughts, that is the new way of thinking, with the heart.” It is Michael’s intention that in the future, intelligence will flow through human hearts and be connected to the same divine spiritual forces that created the human in the beginning of time
If we look for, or even use our imaginative cognition to picture inwardly this cosmic offering, we can carry the thought of Michael/Perseus in our heart-thinking, to consciously align with our Time-Spirit. Let us make the intention to be awake to the power of the Christ-Sun in the Earth, & the enlivening impulse of Anthroposophia within, which through our thinking hearts becomes enlightened by Wisdom, helping us overcome the darkness with love.
This annual celestial event, gifting us with the cosmic iron of Michael, begins as tiny specks of extra-terrestrial dust that hit Earth’s atmosphere at high speeds vaporizing from the friction with our atmosphere, leaving behind the streaks of light we call meteors. These dust particles were born in the comet known as 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which recently returned to the inner solar system in 1992. The giant planet Jupiter has nudged Swift-Tuttle’s debris stream closer to Earth’s orbit, So this year, we could see up to 150-200 meteors per hour, TONIGHT & TOMORROW NIGHT.
The best views will come in the predawn hours. The spectacle will continue to improve as dawn approaches because the shower’s radiant — the spot on the border between the constellations Perseus & Cassiopeia where the meteors appear to emanate from — climbs higher.
As always, you’ll see more meteors at a viewing site far from any artificial lights. Look about two-thirds of the way from the horizon to the zenith, but don’t get tunnel vision gazing at one location. Let your eyes wander so your peripheral vision can pick up meteors you otherwise might not see.
~hag
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Those who work with the Original indications in the Calendar of the Soul know that Rudolf Steiner lists the birth & death days, as well as other significant occurrences of various individualities, along with the dates in the calendar.
He said of this: “What is presented here can be useful to those who wish to follow the path of mankind’s spiritual development” ~Rudolf Steiner. This is my inspiration.
3114 BC – The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations, notably the Mayans, begins
305 – Deathday of Saint Philomena, Steiner speaks of her as being a Greek priestess martyred at age 13 by Roman Emperor Diocletian.
559 – Birthday of Radegunde, Thuringian princess & Frankish queen, who founded the Abbey of the Holy Cross at Poitiers, named for holding the relic of the True Cross. Radegunde ate nothing but legumes & green vegetables, she was widely believed to have the gift of healing.
1253 – Deathday of Saint Clare of Assisi, an Italian saint & one of the first followers of Saint Francis of Assisi
1464 – Deathday of Nicholas of Cusa, a German philosopher, theologian, jurist, & astronomer. One of the first German proponents of Renaissance humanism, he made spiritual & political contributions in European history. A notable example of this is his mystical or spiritual writings on “learned ignorance,” as well as his participation in power struggles between Rome & the German states of the Holy Roman Empire
1877 – The two moons of Mars were discovered by Asaph Hall, an American astronomer. He named them Phobos & Deimos
1896 – Harvey Hubbell received a patent for the electric light bulb socket with a pull-chain
1942 – Actress Hedy Lamarr & composer George Antheil receive a patent for a Frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication system that later became the basis for modern technologies in wireless telephones & Wi-Fi
1956 – Deathday of Jackson Pollock
1965 – the Watts Race Riots begin in Los Angeles, California
1972 – Vietnam War: The last United States ground combat unit leaves South Vietnam
1984 –”My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you that I just signed legislation that would outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” -Said as a joke by senile President Ronald Reagan, while running for re-election, on his weekly Saturday address on National Public Radio.
2012 – At least 1306 people are killed & 3,000 others injured in a pair of earthquakes near Tabriz, Iran
***
My POD (Poem Of the Day)
~I come with the comet
A priestess in the thought-skin of the lion
Spreading the roaring depth of myself out
Before friends & gods
To let them study me…
My ripened body is a rolled papyrus
Tied with red string that holds no pretense
Glow worms hide in the folds of my scroll
I am washed & ready for the new turning
Flashing with the hygienic iron-dust of shooting stars
Reborn in the cradle of my blood
~hag
***
“…And when in high summer, from a particular constellation, meteors fall in great showers of cosmic iron, then this cosmic iron, which carries an enormously powerful healing force, is the weapon which the gods bring to bear against Ahriman, as dragon-like he tries to coil round the shining forms of men. The force which falls on the earth in the meteoric iron is indeed a cosmic force whereby the higher gods endeavour to gain a victory over the Ahrimanic powers, when autumn comes on. And this majestic display in cosmic space, when the August meteor showers stream down into the human shining in the astral light, has its counterpart — so gentle and apparently so small — in a change that occurs in the human blood. This human blood, which is in truth not such a material thing as present-day science imagines, but is permeated throughout by impulses from soul and spirit, is rayed through by the force which is carried as iron into the blood and wages war there on anxiety, fear and hate. The processes which are set going in every blood-corpuscle when the force of iron shoots into it are the same, on a minute human scale, as those which take place when meteors fall in a shining stream through the air. This permeation of human blood by the anxiety-dispelling force of iron is a meteoric activity. The effect of the raying in of the iron is to drive fear and anxiety out of the blood.
And so, as the gods with their meteors wage war on the spirit who would like to radiate fear over all the earth through his coiling serpent-form, and while they cause iron to stream radiantly into this fear-tainted atmosphere, which reaches its peak when autumn approaches or when summer wanes — so the same process occurs inwardly in man, when his blood is permeated with iron. We can understand these things only if we understand their inner spiritual significance on the one hand, and if on the other we recognise how the sulphur-process and the iron-process in man are connected with corresponding events in the cosmos.
A man who looks out into space and sees a shooting-star should say to himself, with reverence for the gods: “That occurrence in the great expanse of space has its minute counterpart continuously in myself. There are the shooting-stars, while in every one of my blood-corpuscles iron is taking form: my life is full of shooting-stars, miniature shooting-stars.” And this inner fall of shooting-stars, pointing to the life of the blood, is especially important when autumn approaches, when the sulphur-process is at its peak. For when men are shining like glow-worms in the way I have described, then the counter-force is present also, for millions of tiny meteors are scintillating inwardly in their blood.
This is the connection between the inner man and the universe. And then we can see how, especially when autumn is approaching, there is a great raying-out of sulphur from the nerve-system towards the brain. The whole man can then be seen as a sulphur-illuminated phantom, so to speak.
But raying into this bluish-yellow sulphur atmosphere come the meteor swarms from the blood. That is the other phantom. While the sulphur-phantom rises in clouds from the lower part of man towards his head, the iron-forming process rays out from his head and pours itself like a stream of meteors into the life of the blood.
Such is man, when Michaelmas draws near. And he must learn to make conscious use of the meteoric-force in his blood. He must learn to keep the Michael Festival by making it a festival for the conquest of anxiety and fear; a festival of inner strength and initiative; a festival for the commemoration of selfless self-consciousness…”
~ Rudolf Steiner, The Four Seasons and the Archangels Lecture I: The Michael Imagination http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA229/English/RSP1968/19231005p01.html
May we all take arms with Michael in right awakened consciousness
Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg
Hi Hazel,
Steiner’s description of the Perseid’s, which govern early to mid August with showers of cosmic/meteoric iron, really do form the transition from the Saint John season to Michaelmas. Placing the radiant in Perseus has to do with an important sacrificial occurrence involving Perseus as the so-called “Sun Hero”, who straddles the Mithras Bull, and drives the dagger into the jugular, and opens the way for the forces of the Sun to enter and transform the Bull to a higher kind of life. In effect, this act becomes the root of the so-called, “Universal Human”.
What causes me distress, and maybe you too, are these present-day descriptions of the Perseid meteor showers based on dust from a comet that eventually was discovered in order to now make it all plain to materialistic thinking. Here is the latest from the USNO:
“This week’s highlight is the peak of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower, which occurs during the overnight hours of the 11th and 12th. This display is the most consistent and productive of the annual meteor showers, and this year it occurs well after the Moon has set. These meteors originate from debris sputtered off Periodic Comet 109P Swift-Tuttle, which circles the Sun on an eccentric path every 133 years. The comet was co-discovered by Lewis Swift and Horace P. Tuttle in July, 1862 and was linked to the Perseid meteor stream by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli in 1866. Records of the Perseids date back over 1000 years, when early Christians identified them with the “Tears of St. Lawrence”, who was martyred on August 10, 258 CE. Under clear skies at a dark location a single observer can expect to see up to 75 to 100 fast-moving meteors per hour. If you follow the meteor trails backwards you will find that they seem to originate from a point in the sky, known as the radiant, in the constellation of Perseus. The radiant rises in the northeast in the late evening and climbs higher in the east during the morning hours. The best way to observe them is comfortably seated in a beach chair with a clear view of the sky. No telescope required! Although the shower is expected to peak on the night of August 11-12, you can expect to see Perseids for several nights afterward.”
https://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/tours-events/sky-this-week/the-sky-this-week-2021-august-10-24
I like Steiner’s description much more because he does not resort to any kind of dust residue from comets. His explanation is entirely from supersensible sources, and likely needs to be accepted on its own foundations. If we have any chance of releasing the New Isis, what needs to take place?
ANTHROPOSOPHIA
~ Isabel Wyatt
Rudolf Steiner has called the Moon the Cosmos of Wisdom, for it was during the Moon – evolution of the Earth, which gave man his astral body, that the unconscious wisdom which we call instinct was built into the animal world. Man has been torn out of this, but when his astrality is redeemed into Spirit – Self, he will enter again this harmonious sphere of wisdom, but on a higher conscious level. Moreover, the knowledge of the head will have been warmed and interpenetrated by the wisdom of the heart. Man, who judges now out of the limitations of his sense – nature will, in John Scotus Erigena’s phrase, then cognize like an angel. He will have found again the lost Sophia.
From your POD, we will study you, we your readers, that is, taking into our consciousnesses the Sophia lessons, and the Michael experiences that your papyrus tells us of, derived from your many Earth incarnations and planetary sojourns.
Thank you for offering your papyrus in service to humanity.
What a blessing you are dear Maverick. You take the word in so deeply & reflect it back with such beauty & clarity. Thank you.