Dear Friends –
This Sunday September 13th 2015, we experience a solar eclipse, which falls on the Jewish New Year.
Rosh Hashanah literally means “Head of the Year.” It is the first of the ‘High Holy Days’ or ‘Days of Awe’; a celebration that starts on the new moon and is believed to be the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve.
It weds seriousness with festivity and begins the 10 days of repentance that culminates in Yom Kippur.
The New Year focuses our attention on themes of judgment, repentance, memory and the Divine Presence in the world. It invites us to celebrate birth and creation on many levels.
Family-oriented services often include a birthday cake for the world. Customs include sounding the shofar (a hollowed-out ram’s horn) and eating symbolic foods such as apples dipped in honey to emphasize the sweetness of starting the cycle of seasons once again, and round challah to remind us of the cycles of life.
This partial solar eclipse in Virgo, begins at 11:40 pm CDT on Sept. 12th, but we won’t be able to see it in our part of the world.
It will only be visible in South Africa, Antarctica and locations in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. But even though we can’t see the eclipse, through Anthroposophy, we know that when the sunlight is blocked by the moon in a solar eclipse, the will forces of humanity, unmediated by the sun, are discharged out into the darkness, and in that time, these unpurified forces of human will flow out into universal space, in what Rudolf Steiner calls, ‘an abnormal, malevolent way’.
And so it is my friends that we are called to hold the light as Michaelites.
Sunday September 13th 5:30am – 7am– Solar Eclipse Gathering –
This New Moon solar eclipse in Virgo, is on “The Feast of Trumpets” – the eve of Rosh Hashanah. Together as we greet the Sunrise, with:
The Hallelujah in Eurythmy, and other group eurythmy with Tish Pierce, we will review parts of Steiner’s lecture “Human Questions and Cosmic Answers”, so that we can rise in our thinking to meet the spiritual significance of an eclipse; and work with the Foundation Stone Meditation, and other Verses.
Singing and artistic endeavors will round out the morning.
Shared potluck Breakfast to follow.
For a brief summary of some leading thoughts on eclipses, here’s a link:
http://www.anthroposophy.org/fileadmin/regions/central/Speaking_of_Eclipses_FINAL.pdf