26 March 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: One of Spring’s finest deep-sky sights is the Beehive star cluster in the constellation Cancer the Crab. With the naked, you should be able to spot this star group as a fuzzy cloud high in the south after darkness falls. O & don’t forget that Bella Luna & Jupiter the Benevolent King are riding high these next few nights together.
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
1812 – Caracas earthquake took place in Venezuela on what was Maundy Thursday killing over 20,000 people. The seismic movement was so drastic that in a zone named Valecillo a new lake was formed & the river Yurubí was dammed up. Numerous rivulets changed their course in the valley of Caracas, which was flooded with dirty water. The earthquake consisted of two seismic shocks occurring within the span of 30 minutes. The first destroyed Caracas & the second Mérida, where it was raining when the shock occurred. Since the earthquake occurred on Maundy Thursday, while the Venezuelan War of Independence was raging, it was explained by royalist authorities as divine punishment for the rebellion against the Spanish Crown.
1812 – A political cartoon in the Boston Gazette coins the term “gerrymander” to describe oddly shaped electoral districts designed to help incumbents win reelection.
1827 – Death-Day of Ludwig van Beethoven, German pianist & composer
1830 – The Book of Mormon is published in Palmyra, New York.
1856 – Birthday of Fritz Lemmermayer, an Austrian writer, journalist & closest childhood friend of Rudolf Steiner in Vienna. Fritz was a passionate anti-materialist, he wanted to devote his life to the creation & maintenance of spiritual values. In 1883 he completed his novel “The Alchemist”. Rudolf Steiner met Lemmermayer again in 1886 in the circle of the poet Marie Eugenie delle Grazie. An extensive correspondence attests to the close friendship between the two (see GA 38).
Steiner says: Fritz Lemmermayer, with whom I was later on terms of intimate friendship, I came to know at one of delle Grazie’s afternoons. A highly noteworthy man. Whatever interested him he expressed with inwardly measured dignity. In his outward appearance he resembled equally the musician Rubinstein and the actor Lewinsky. With Hebbel he developed almost a cult. He had definite views on art and life born out of the sagacious understanding of the heart, and these were unusually fixed. He had written the interesting and profound romance, Der Alchemist(3), and much besides that was characterized by beauty and depth. He knew how to consider the least things in life from the view-point of the most vital. I recall how I once saw him in his charming little room in a side-street in Vienna together with other friends. He had planned his meal: two soft-boiled eggs, to be cooked in an instantaneous boiler, together with bread. He remarked with much emphasis while the water was heating to boil the eggs for us: “This will be delicious!” In a later phase of my life I shall again have occasion to speak of him ~Rudolf Steiner, The Story of My Life, Chapter VII Lemmermayer & Steiner joined the ranks of the Viennese artist circle in the house of the protestant priest Alfred Formey. In 1891 Lemmermayer was vice president of Schrifstellerbundes Iduna , named after Iduna , the Norse goddess of youth & immortality a counterweight against the currents of naturalism. Lemmermayer became a member of the Anthroposophical Society in 1920. He Steiner on many trips through Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Holland & England. This led to his 1929 published memories, where he spoke about Rudolf Steiner, Robert Hamerling & other personalities of the Austrian intellectual life of the 80s. In addition, Lemmermayer published in the weekly ” Das Goetheanum “.
1874 – Birthday of Robert Frost, American poet & playwright
1892 – Deathday of Walt Whitman
1902 – Deathday of Cecil Rhodes – British imperialist & mining magnate
1979 – Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin & Jimmy Carter sign the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty in Washington, D.C
***
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~from my own
body I give
birth to all time.
look now
with new eyes
& stir the season within…
~hag
***
This is the seed time…when the chains of death are broken & life bursts forth from the earth. Each day another minute of light triumphs over the darkness. The elementals arise, & wait for us to work with them in good will. The Sun stretches out its hand to the child within us all, bidding us to return from the land of the dead, to be cloaked in the fresh rain. Enlivened with the sweet scent of aspiration on our breath, we can joyfully step forth. As the wild flowers send their pastel shoots up from the brown compost, our souls dance in delight. Despair turns to hope, sorrow to joy, want to abundance…
If we do not spring forward, we will surly slip back. Within our own minds many detailed explanations may exist – excuses? -that keep us from moving forward. To put them in perspective we can see them in relation to the 4 basic elements…
1st choose the area of your life you want to focus on, such as relationship, health, career, clarity around direction, spiritual growth…etc…
Then begin in the East: Air – What thoughts bind you? Are you too scattered in your thinking, can’t make up your mind? Too dogmatic? Suffer from monkey mind? Inner critic on overdrive? What do you need so that you can create a positive thought pattern? What does a free mind look like?
South: Fire – What binds your will? Are you too impulsive? Too willful, or perhaps your will is unfocused? Not able to take action? Feel fearful-unsafe? What do you need to empower your will force so you are free to take action?
West: Water – What emotions bind you? Are you too sensitive? Do you hold on to old feelings? Or are you rigid, not able to be empathic? Can’t go with the flow? How can you reclaim your creative fertility & be compassionate to yourself?
North: Earth – Does necessity bind you? Are you stuck in the mud? A perfectionist? Is nothing ever good enough? Perhaps you find it hard to complete things? What would it look like to be grounded, productive, prosperous & steadfast in your determination to create & manifest?
Perhaps this Spring season will call you to re-dedicate yourself to the 6 Basic Exercises…
From Rudolf Steiner: A meditant should do these six exercises:
1. Control of Thought: Think about a simple object for at least five minutes. Hold it fast in thoughts without going over to other things. This exercise arouses a feeling of firmness in the pupil as it activates the chakra between the eyebrows. One should send this feeling through the brain and down the backbone.
2. Control of will (acting on your own initiative): Do an unimportant thing every day at a certain time. This exercise also gives firmness.
3. Develop equanimity, that is, one shouldn’t fluctuate between rejoicing to heaven and despairing to death. A joke can be enjoyed just as much if one doesn’t laugh boisterously at; one can bear a pain better if one doesn’t wallow in it too much. This gives one a feeling of quiet calm that one lets stream from the heart to the arms, and out through the hands.
4. Positivity: See the beautiful and true elements in all things. Christ Jesus admired the beautiful teeth in a rotting dog, where his disciples only saw ugliness. One can discover at least a small kernel of truth and something beautiful in everything. If one does this exercise for some time it gives one a feeling of great joy.
5. Open mindedness: Always be open to new things. One should never say: I never heard of that, that can’t be, or I don’t believe that. One should always leave the possibility open that one can learn something from everything that people say. Thereby one can learn from children, animals and everything else. This gives one the feeling that one could also perceive things while one is partly outside one’s body.
6. Inner Harmony: This exercise is a combination of the preceding ones, so that one can combine two and two or any way one wants. By doing this, one gets the feeling that one has grown beyond the limits of one’s skin.
By practicing these basic exercises we develop our soul forces of Thinking, Feeling & Willing, creating new spiritual organs of perception. May we all take up the work of transformation which will lead us into the Resurrection.
Blessings of becoming dear friends
~hag
***
From Johanna Rohde:
Dear Colleagues,
Friends, Family and Aquaintances—whom I have yet to meet,
This is an update of my “Journey to Wellness” GoFundMe crowd funding campaign
that began about 6 months ago; about 1/3 of the targeted goal has been raised.
During this time, in an attempt to determine the right treatment—the most effective protocol for alternatives to chemo, I believe I have discovered what will be necessary to meet the challenge of this particular cancer, this sarcoma.I have the opportunity to enroll in a 2 year treatment program which does not require that I have to travel to a center (saving expenses!); it can be done at home. It has a 96% success rate (meaning, not returning) for stage 4 leiomyosarcomas and it can augmented or replace chemo. (I would replace.)
The cost is $20,000 for the 2 year program. (This is considered very reasonable compared to on-site treatment centers that can charge as much for just a few weeks, with possible relapses).
I have just been offered a $10,000 scholarship towards this treatment. This is awesome! This is awesome!
But there is a deadline for receiving it. March 28th!!!
If you have the possibility to make a second contribution towards this campaign or can enlist 2 or 4 friends to join, this goal could be met, in order to match this scholarship. But this is a very short window of opportunity, in order to retain this scholarship.
If you have the
possibility to make a second contribution towards this campaign or can enlist 2
or 4 friends to join, this goal could be met, in order to match this
scholarship. But this is a very short window of opportunity, in order to retain
this scholarship.
In crunching the numbers this would be approximately:
$155 per person
$75.00 per 2 people
$40.00 per 4 people
I am very excited and relieved to have found this after much trial and
searching. I see this as a real opportunity on this next step of this “journey
to wellness”!
And I extend deep, heart-felt gratitude to you all for your initial
contributions over these last 6 months!
I truly felt accompanied along this path!
Help spread the word!
https://www.gofundme.com/m8dvw8?viewupdates=1&rcid=r01-155343840195-e4