7 July 2016 – ASTRO-WEATHER – Today is the “seventh day of the seventh Moon” – moons being months – & is the traditional day for cultures in the Far East to celebrate the story of the Goddess of Weaving & the Handsome Farmer, more familiar to us as the Summer Triangle, directly overhead at 12 AM CDT.

Today also marks the peak of Pluto’s 2016 appearance. The distant world reaches opposition, which means it lies opposite the Sun in our sky & remains visible all night in northeastern Sagittarius.

‘World Chocolate Day’ – today marks 466 years since chocolate was introduced to Europe

1798 – As a result of the XYZ Affair, the U.S. Congress rescinds the Treaty of Alliance with France sparking the “Quasi-War”

1834 – In New York City, four nights of rioting against abolitionists began. In the Americas & Western Europe, abolitionism was a movement to end the Atlantic slave trade & set slaves free. In the 17th century, English Quakers and evangelical Protestants condemned slavery as un-Christian. By that time, most slaves were Africans, but thousands of Native Americans remained enslaved. In the 18th century, as many as six million Africans were taken to the Americas as slaves. At least a third of the newly enslaved Africans were carried on British ships.

1911 – The United States, Great Britain, Japan, & Russia sign the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention banning open-water seal hunting, the first international treaty to address wildlife preservation issues

1928 – Sliced bread is sold for the first time (on the inventor’s 48th birthday) by the Chillicothe Baking Company

1930 – Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser begins construction of Boulder Dam

1930 – Deathday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes

1937 – Japanese forces invaded China

1946 – Mother Francesca S. Cabrini becomes the first American to be canonized

1946 – Howard Hughes nearly dies when his XF-11 reconnaissance aircraft prototype crashes in a Beverly Hills neighborhood

1947 – The Roswell incident, the (supposed) crash of an alien spaceship near Roswell in New Mexico

1959 – Venus occults the star Regulus. This rare event is used to determine the diameter of Venus & the structure of the Venusian atmosphere

1987 – Public testimony at the Iran-Contra hearing began

1994 – Amazon.com, Inc. was founded in Seattle, Washington under the name “Cadabra.”

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~the Bee & the Stag

Are making honey from my sweat…

~hag

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The “School of the Sounds” speaks:

In art we find the doorway to the eternal. It is a bridge which connects us with spiritual processes. It opens the way so we can step back from sense-bound life, bringing us closer to the core of being – who we are before birth & after death.

Rudolf Steiner talks about how the spiritual realm can be felt, especially around the shoulders & head. How from there, it sends out its blessing out in the forces of speech & thought. The art of the creative speech is destined to open this realm in a new way.

Around the head weave the thoughts that in primordial beginnings were one with the Logos, & to which we turn thru the words:

“In the beginning is the thought, and the thought is with God, And a Godly Being is the thought. In it is life, and life shall become the light of my ‘I’. And may the divine thought shine into my ‘I’, so that the darkness of my ’I’ may take hold of the divine thought.” ~Rudolf Steiner, The Pre-Earthly Deeds of Christ.

The more we speak & move words like these, artistically, with vivid, sensing feeling, & the more lovingly we are able to dedicate ourselves to them, the more lively & lasting will they live within us. A gesture embodying a loving mood unfolds & expands the human soul.

“The dwindling of the forces of love is the same as what we could call the dwindling of the forces of the etheric body, for the ether body is at the same time the body of love.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Faith, Hope, Love.

In language & speaking we have before us – audibly – an archetype, a vibrational image of the human being. We can implement the idea of becoming healthy thru speech, by changing our speaking habits. Artistic practice of individual sounds brings to bare the wholeness of the cosmos within us.

One of our sister-strivers, from NE Oregon, tuning into this blog, wrote that she went out walking with her dog with the intention of sounding U & instead, out came “Do-Re-Me” from The Sound of Music! She said: “Worked great. cheerful, positive and picked up my pace a little to walk with the song. Thank you for the sound connection. “ Thank you Virginia for sharing your insights!

Making it fun certainly enlivens the process!

We become ill when our inner life-stream has come into disorder. Rudolf Steiner describes the struggle that takes place in the ether body “…between the progressive spirits & the ahrimanic beings…our ether body becomes pervaded by spiritual darkness….In the ether body is our store of memories, mirrored thoughts that we have in memories, thoughts mirrored by time. But deep down in our ether body, behind memory, the good, divine-spiritual beings are at work, opposing Ahriman.” ~The Inner nature of Man.

An artistic practice of speech strives to reach the profound forces of the life-body in order to ignite anew the supporting, maintaining, healthy life forces within us. We can work consciously with these helpful spiritual beings to bring ourselves back into health.

Let’s become active researchers into Spiritual Science by putting this into practice, each in our own way.

Until soon

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg