Vernal Full Moon

10 April 2017 – Astro-Weather: Full Wind Moon (exactly full at 1:08 AM CDT) Bella Luna Moona shines near Jupiter all night, since they’re both at their oppositions. Spica, the sheath of wheat in the hand of the Virgin is below them

Dalia Flexer

TODAY is the 1st night of Passover

***

What is the difference between Knowledge and Wisdom?
Knowledge is understanding how a tool works.
Wisdom is knowing how and when to use it.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

According to Rudolf Stiner’s Calendar of the Soul, this is the Birth Day of the prophets Daniel & Ezekiel. As well as the day Wagner received the inspiration for Parsifal in Zurich, 1857.

Anne Cameron

Daniel – Hebrew “God is my Judge” hero of the Book of Daniel who interprets dreams & receives apocalyptic visions. Daniel & his friends Hananiah, Mishael, & Azariah were among the young Jewish nobility carried off to Babylon following the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. The four are chosen for their intellect & beauty to be trained in the Babylonian court, & are given new names. Daniel is given the Babylonian name Belteshazzar, while his companions are given the Babylonian names Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego. Daniel & his friends refuse the food & wine provided by the king of Babylon to avoid becoming defiled. They receive wisdom from God & surpass “all the magicians & enchanters of the kingdom.” Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a giant statue made of four metals with feet of mingled iron & clay, smashed by a stone from heaven. Only Daniel is able to interpret it: the dream signifies four kingdoms, of which Babylon is the first, but God will destroy them & replace them with his own kingdom. Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a great tree that shelters all the world & of a heavenly figure who decrees that the tree will be destroyed; again, only Daniel can interpret the dream, which concerns the sovereignty of God over the kings of the earth.

When Nebuchadnezzar’s son King Belshazzar uses the vessels from the Jewish temple for his feast, a hand appears & writes a mysterious message on the wall, which only Daniel can interpret; it tells the king that his kingdom will be given to the Medes & Persians, because Belshazzar, unlike Nebuchadnezzar, has not acknowledged the sovereignty of the God of Daniel. They overthrow Nebuchadnezzar & the new king, Darius the Mede, appoints Daniel to high authority. Jealous rivals attempt to destroy Daniel with an accusation that he worships God instead of the king, & Daniel is thrown into a den of lions, but an angel saves him, his accusers are destroyed, & Daniel is restored to his position.

In the third year of Darius, Daniel has a series of visions. In the first, four beasts come out of the sea, the last with ten horns, & an eleventh horn grows & achieves dominion over the Earth & the “Ancient of Days” (God) gives dominion to “one like a son of man”. An angel interprets the vision.

In the second, a ram with two horns is attacked by a goat with one horn; the one horn breaks & is replaced by four. A little horn arises & attacks the people of God & the temple, & Daniel is informed how long the little horn’s dominion will endure.

In the third, Daniel is troubled to read in holy scripture (the book is not named but appears to be Jeremiah) that Jerusalem would be desolate for 70 years. Daniel repents on behalf of the Jews & requests that Jerusalem & its people be restored. An angel refers to a period of 70 sevens (or weeks) of years.

In the final vision, Daniel sees a period of history culminating in a struggle between the “king of the north” & the “king of the south” in which God’s people suffer terribly; an angel explains that in the end the righteous will be vindicated & God’s kingdom will be established on Earth.

The Prophet Ezekiel describes his calling to be a prophet by going into great detail about his encounter with God & 4 living creatures or Cherubim with four wheels that stayed beside the creatures. For the next five years he incessantly prophesied & acted out the destruction of Jerusalem & its temple, which was met with opposition.

According to the midrash Canticles Rabbah, Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego asked for his advice as to whether they should resist Nebuchadnezzar’s command & choose death by fire rather than worship his idol. At first God revealed to the prophet that they could not hope for a miraculous rescue; whereupon the prophet was greatly grieved, since these 3 men constituted the “remnant of Judah”. But after they had left the house of the prophet, fully determined to sacrifice their lives to God, Ezekiel received this revelation: “Thou dost believe indeed that I will abandon them. That shall not happen; but do thou let them carry out their intention according to their pious dictates, & tell them nothing”

Ezekiel’s statement about the “closed gate” (Ezekiel 44:2–3) is understood  as another prophecy of the coming Incarnation of Christ : the “gate” signifying the Virgin Mary & the “prince” referring to Jesus. This is one of the readings at Vespers on Great Feasts of the Theotokos in the Eastern Orthodox & Byzantine Catholic Churches. “No one can enter Heaven unless by Mary, as though through a door.” The imagery provides the basis for the concept that God gave Mary to mankind as the “Gate of Heaven” (thence the dedication of churches & convents to the Porta Coeli), an idea also laid out in the Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen) prayer.

837 – Halley’s Comet makes its closest approach to Earth

***

Sally Vector

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Look, she said, leaning out the window
To wave at the stream of the Vernal Moon
See
How the reflected Easter light rises…
Mirroring strident spirals of the New Sun
Calling: Become
The cup of victory
& see thru soul eyes
To speak deeds clothed in spirit-light…
~hag

***

Dear Friends –

The date of the moveable feast called Easter, contains a unique mystery. For it is determined by a cosmic alignment. So, as many of you know, 1st the sun must enter into the sign of Spring, then it waits, for the moon to come into its vernal fullness…Then the planetary beings whose names correspond with the days of the week come into play. Holy Week.

We are invited to connect to the Solar forces, so when the first Sun-Day after the Full Moon of Spring arrives, then it is time to celebrate the Easter festival.

And there is deeper meaning still in this alignment. It indicates how through the Christ Impulse, humanity is to be set free from the forces of earth-evolution, pure & simple.

It contains a call to humanity to lift ourselves up to the worlds beyond the earth; to once again speak with the stars. It contains a promise, that in the course of world-history, it will be possible, through the working of the Christ Impulse, for humanity to once again be united with the cosmos, in the New Jerusalem. It is for this that we strive when we celebrate the Easter Fest. 

Its consequence, must be looked for in all human history, in the arts, in human thinking, in all social relationships, & even in the materialistic triumphs of modern science.

~ ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Anthroposophy itself must become like an inner festival of Resurrection for the human soul. It must bring an Easter mood into man’s world-conception.” – Rudolf Steiner, The Easter Festival in relation to the Mysteries.

***

Holy Monday – From Emil Bock – Mark 11: 12-25

«Christ approaches the fig tree at Bethphage and wishes to show the disciples how little value should be attached to the “Hosanna” of the previous day. All that it represented was the last fruits of the old visionary clairvoyance, given by nature, and bound to the body. The words He addresses to the fig tree are, as it were, a challenge to the whole realm of ancient ecstatic vision. Here a momentous decision is made in the history of mankind. Jesus rejects the Hosannas of the people, and Himself brings about the transition to their cry, “Crucify Him”. He has the courage Himself to summon the spiritual blindness through which the people will fanatically demand His death. Humanity must act out of a consciousness that leads to freedom, even if it means tragedy; even if men in their spiritual blindness nail Him on the cross.

On that Monday in Holy Week Christ rejects a temptation. Had He allied Himself with the ancient clairvoyant forces, He might have found public recognition. Not only people would have cried “Hosanna”; they would have crowned Him King. But a final pronouncement is made: Christ will find no link with the ancient forces. His sole aim is that mankind should find the way to awakening and freedom. It is no unloving curse that He utters on the fig trees of those who had lent him the ass and its colt. He acts purely from the nature of his own being. He is the Sun and when the Sun rises, the Moon perforce goes pale. So the moon-forces of the old vision fade away.

The Christ appears before the Temple. Many hundreds of pilgrims have assembled, and around the Temple buying and selling, trading and bargaining are being carried on. In the Temple itself a feverish activity prevails; sacrificial beasts are needed for the Festival, the Passover lamb must be slaughtered. This is a source of business; for the animals have to be brought before they are sacrificed. Old Annas, the notorious miser of world history, knows how to make a profit. He has already made a vast fortune from this market. He has been the wire-puller in the political compromise with the Romans which is the basis of the Temple business. The pilgrims must change their local currency into the official currency which is valid in the Temple. This is Roman currency. Thus the Temple comprises also a Roman Exchange market. The Roman fiscal officers have been admitted to the Temple, although they were representatives of the Cult of Caesar, because it was hoped by this compromise to keep them at least out of the Holy of Holies.

Now Christ comes on the scene. He is coming to fulfil the custom of the feast. But the fire of His burning will has its effect. There is no need for Him to say much. The people are immediately seized with panic. Terror-stricken, they realize into what decadence they have fallen. Something similar had taken place at the feast of the Passover, three years before. At that time the terrifying effect came from the divine nature of the Christ, despite the conscious restraint which was still exercised by Jesus.

But now the divinity is entirely transformed into humanity; it has become intensity of will. He has the right to tear down the mask of decadence of the Temple.

The sun of Christ shines, and the glimmer of the Moon must fade away on the moon-hill of Mount Moriah. The spectres of the night flee from the sun. In place of a magnificent Temple appears a simple room on Mount Zion. There, in the Last Supper, the seed of a new ritual and worship, a Sun-like Sacrament, will be sown. The moon-religion of antiquity will be superseded on the evening of Maundy Thursday, when on the sun-hill of Mount Zion, Christ gives Bread and Wine to His disciples.»

***

Current Festival & Program Events

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.