unbound & beauteous

22 January 2018 – Astro-Weather: Orion is now high in the southeast right after dark.  Orion is the brightest of the 88 constellations, but his main pattern is surprisingly small compared to some of his dimmer neighbors. The biggest of these is Eridanus the River to his west, enormous but hard to trace. Dimmer Fornax the Furnace, to Eridanus’s lower right, is almost as big as Orion! Even the main pattern of Lepus, the Hare cowering under Orion’s feet, isn’t much smaller than he is.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1905 – Bloody Sunday in Saint Petersburg – unarmed demonstrators led by Father Georgy Gapon were fired upon by soldiers of the Imperial Guard as they marched towards the Winter Palace to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Bloody Sunday caused grave consequences for the Tsarist autocracy governing Imperial Russia: the events in St. Petersburg provoked public outrage and a series of massive strikes that spread quickly throughout the industrial centers of the Russian Empire. The massacre on Bloody Sunday is considered to be the start of the active phase of the Revolution of 1905. In addition these events became one of the key events which led to the Russian Revolution of 1917.

1561 – Birthday of Francis Bacon, English philosopher & politician, Attorney General for England and Wales. Rudolf Steiner speaks of him as Harun al Rashid in Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies – Volume I lecture 10:

When we learn to know the individuality of Haroun al Raschid inwardly in the astral light, as we say, when we have him before us as a spiritual individuality in the 9th century, bearing in mind what he was behind the scenes of world-history and when what he was had been unfolded on the surface with the brilliance of which I have told you — then we can follow the course of time and find such an individuality as Haroun al Raschid passing through death, looking down from the spiritual world upon what is happening on earth, looking down, that is to say, upon the outward extermination of Arabism and, in accordance with his destiny, being involved in the process. We find such an individuality passing through the spiritual world and appearing again, not perhaps with the same splendour, but with a similar trend of soul.

And so we see Haroun al Raschid appearing again in the history of European spiritual life as a personality who is once again of wide repute, namely, as Lord Bacon of Verulam. I have spoken of Lord Bacon in many different connections. All the driving power that was in Haroun al Raschid and was conveyed to those in his environment, this same impulse was imparted by Lord Bacon in a more abstract form — for he lived in the age of abstraction — to the various branches of knowledge. Haroun al Raschid was a universal spirit in the sense that he united specialists, so to speak, around him. Lord Bacon — he has of course his Inspirer behind him, but he is a fit subject to be so inspired — Lord Bacon is a personality who is also able to exercise a truly universal influence.

When with this knowledge of an historic karmic connection we turn to Bacon and his writings, we recognise why these writings have so little that is Christian about them and such a strong Arabic timbre. We discover the genuine Arabist trend in these writings of Lord Bacon. And many things too in regard to his character, which has been so. often impugned, will be explicable when we see in him the reincarnated Haroun al Raschid. The life and culture pursued at the Court of Haroun al Raschid, and justly admired by Charles the Great himself, become the abstract science of which Lord Bacon was the bearer. But men bowed before Lord Bacon too. And whoever studies the attitude adopted by European civilisation in the 8th/9th centuries to Haroun al Raschid, and then the attitude of European learning to Lord Bacon, will have the impression: men have turned round, that is all! In the days of Haroun al Raschid they looked towards the East; then they turned round in Middle Europe and looked towards the West, to Lord Bacon.

And so what may have disappeared, outwardly speaking, from history, is carried from age to age by human individualities themselves. Arabism seems to have disappeared; but it lives on, lives on in its fundamental trend. And just as the outer aspects of a human life differ from those of the foregoing life, so do the influences exercised by such a personality differ from age to age.

1729 – Birthday of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German philosopher & author. Rudolf Steiner speaks about him at length in in Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies – Volume I lecture 11:

“.…At the close of his life Lessing wrote the remarkable essay, The Education of the Human Race, at the end of which, quite isolated, as it were, the idea of repeated earth-lives appears. The book shows how mankind goes through one epoch of development after another, and how the Gods gave into man’s hand as a first primer, so to speak, the Old Testament, and then as a second primer the New Testament, and how in the future a third book will come for the further education of the human race. And then all at once the essay is brought to a close with a brief presentation of the idea that man lives through repeated earth-lives. And there Lessing says, again in a way that is absolutely in accord with his character (I am not quoting the actual words, but this is the gist of it): Ought the idea of repeated earth-lives to seem so absurd, considering that it was present in very early times, when men had not yet been spoilt by school learning? The essay then ends with a genuine panegyric on repeated earth-lives, finishing with these beautiful words: “Is not all Eternity mine?”…”

1788 – Birthday of Lord Byron, English poet & playwright. In the same lecture that Rudolf Steiner speaks about Lessing, he also mentions Lord Byron. So interesting that they share the same birthday. Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies – Volume I lecture 11:

It was when, in another connection, I began to take a special interest in the life of Lord Byron. And at that same time I got to know some Byron enthusiasts. One of them was the poetess, Marie Eugenie delle Grazie, of whom I shall have much to say in my autobiography. During a certain period of her life she was a Byron enthusiast. Then there was another, a most remarkable personality, a strange mixture of all possible qualities — Eugen Heinrich Schmidt. Many of you who know something about the history of Anthroposophy will be familiar with his name…”

Gosta Adrian Nilsson

 

1849 – August Strindberg, Swedish novelist, poet, & playwright. Rudolf Steiner speaks of him as Julia, the daughter of Augustus in Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture II. So interesting that  Bacon, Lessing, Byron & Strindberg all share the same Birthday & were all researched by Rudolf Steiner, who looked into their former incarnations & reported this research in his Karmic Relationships lectures the focus of his life’s work right before he died.

This date was also the Deathday of Rudolf Steiner’s father Johann Steiner in 1910.

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I greet teeth white with biting bitter heads…
Devour time, dear ally, to make my bread rise
& free my blood to be
Reborn of spirit unbound & beauteous...
~hag

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Alfred Agache

The 3 Fates are celebrated & worshiped by many names, in many traditions: the Nordic Norns, the Greek Moirae, in Scandinavia we have the Wyrd Sisters, Wyrd=the Word, a prefiguring of The Logos. In mythology we hear about ‘the Daughters of Necessity’. In fairy tale we meet the Maiden Crones from Giant-Land. From Medieval Europe in Shakespeare’s Macbeth we have the 3 Witches, also called The Harsh Spinners. In the Judeo/Christian tradition this concept evolves into: Faith, Hope & Charity. In the Americas we see this image of the Triple Goddess, in a mountain in Oregon called the 3 Sisters, outpictured in the Native American legend of Squash, Corn & beans, the 3-sisters that work together to feed humanity. We will also look into what Spiritual Science reveals about the Sibyls…& so I invite you to come join us to receive the cyphers of their stories:

Spinning Destiny with the Fates

An Experiential Workshop with Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Saturday, 10 February 2018 – 10:30 AM – 4:30 PM

At the Theosophical Society 1926 N Main St, Wheaton, IL 60187

Come face the Fates & meet the Sibyls in the Light of Anthroposophy & ask: Does Fortune smile? Is Justice blind? How can I Co-Create with Destiny, to spin the thread of my life with integrity, to heal and clear the collective karma, & achieve my True Becoming?

Through the insights of Rudolf Steiner,  the power of Myth-Telling, & Ritual-Tasks, such as interactive drumming, & Socratic questioning; we will journey into our soul-depths to stand before the “Daughters of Necessity” that we will transform to meet our true calling; asking: ‘What is my Highest Purpose?’

Please bring your own vegetarian lunch

$60 nonmembers $50 members $70 at the door

Register here

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg  –Spiritual Midwife, Trans-denominational Minister, Essayist, Lecturer, Blogger – Anthroposopher, working as the Festivals Coordinator for the Rudolf Steiner Branch of Chicago. Founder of  www.reverseritual.com

 

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