16 August 2016 – Astro-Weather: Mercury reaches greatest elongation today, when it stands 27° east of the Sun. The innermost planet hangs low in the west after sunset. Be sure to keep an eye on Mercury, Venus, & Jupiter during the next two weeks as the triangle they form grows tighter.
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“He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.” ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Rembrandt 1634
Abraham receives Isaac back from Yahweh, according to the spiritual research of Rudolf Steiner, GA 117
1705 – Deathday of Jacob Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician & theorist, founder of the calculus of variations. His most important contribution was in the field of probability
1744 – Birthday of Pierre Méchain, French astronomer who studied of deep sky objects & comets
1841 – U.S. President John Tyler vetoes a bill which called for the re-establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members riot outside the White House in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history
1842 – In New York City, the U.S. government took over operations of the City Despatch Post. This was the first congressionally authorized local postage delivery
1888 – Birthday of T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia) British colonel & archaeologist
1899 – Deathday of Robert Bunsen, a German chemist, discovered caesium & rubidium, pioneer in photochemistry, & did early work in the field of organoarsenic chemistry. He developed the Bunsen burner, an improvement on the laboratory burners then in use
1948 – Deathday of Babe Ruth
1906 – An estimated 8.2 MW earthquake hits Valparaíso, Chile, killing 3,886 people
1913 – Birthday of Menachem Begin, Belarusian-Israeli Zionist politician, 6th Prime Minister of Israel, Nobel Prize laureate
1923 – Carnegie Steel Corporation put into place the eight-hour workday for its employees
1960 – Cyprus gains independence from Britain
1977 – Deathday of Elvis Presley
1989 – A solar flare from the Sun creates a geomagnetic storm that affects micro chips, leading to a halt of all trading on Toronto’s stock market
1999 – In Russia, Vladimir V. Putin was confirmed as prime minister by the lower house of parliament
2005 – Deathday (murder) of Brother Roger Schütz, founded the Taizé Community, an ecumenical monastic community in Burgundy, France
2012 – South African police fatally shoot 34 miners & wound 78 more during an industrial dispute near Rustenburg
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My POD (Poem Of the Day)
~Golden Hexagram –
Raw Geometry –
Viscus wax
In sticky sacrifice…
~hag
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Today I challenge myself to: Be honest.
And I ask: Have I had any of the following symptoms?
- Lack of interest in trivial matters & a yearning for big, holy mysteries.
- Unfamiliar but interesting impulses rising up in me demanding consideration.
- Fresh insights into people & situations I’ve known a long time.
- An altered sense of the flow of time.
- Out-of-the-blue recall of long-forgotten memories.
Ok, so I am asking these questions because I know I can say YES!
And I continue to ponder, taking an inventory of all my inner voices, noticing both the content of what they say & the tone with which they say it. Some of them may be chatty & others shy; some blaring & others seductive; some nagging & needy & others calm & insightful.
Today I welcome all the voices in my head into the spotlight of my alert attention. I ask them to step forward & reveal their agendas.
Imagine that your life is a detective story. The goal is not to solve a crime, but to solve the mystery of why we’re here on earth, so we can carry out the special mission we’ve come to accomplish.
Sometimes we go for months without even looking for clues. We sleepwalk through the world, reacting blindly to the tricks that the gods use to try to wake us up.
Then there are those phases when hot leads, fresh evidence & opportunities, pop up all over the place, convincing us beyond a doubt that spirituality & magic are the fundamental properties of reality. Could this be one of ‘those’ times?
Through some cosmic intervention, a sad or bad or mad story will get tweaked prior to the final turn of the plot. Just as I’m getting ready to nurse my regrets, an X-factor or wild card will appear, transforming the meaning of a series of puzzling events. This may not generate a perfectly happy ending, since I know life is a process, but it will at least result in an interesting & redemptive epiphany.
What is the precise nature of that X-factor or wild card?
Perhaps a big secret will be revealed or some missing evidence will arrive or a mental block will crumble. And it’s likely that I will have an inspiration about how valuable my ‘problem’ has actually been.
I’m reminded of Jung’s formula, which is that we don’t so much solve our problems, as we outgrow them. We add capacities & experiences that eventually make us bigger than the problems.
Here’s to insightful growth & creative living!
XOX
Blessings & Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg
