In a message dated 11/21/02 1:41:23 AM, Prkrjake writes: <<
The Correspondence The cycle of the planet Mars, traditionally associated with war and conflict, is a two-year rhythm, starting at conjunction with the Sun and culminating two years later at the next Sun-Mars conjunction. At the present time Mars is moving away from a conjunction with the Sun in Leo this past August toward its opposition with the Sun from Pisces in August 2003. Mars will conclude its current cycle in September 2004 when it again meets the Sun, this time in the sign Virgo. If it is true what Rudolf Steiner says, that it is a provision of the spiritual world that every real spiritual fact appears in the script of the starry heavens, then what can we make of this current movement of Mars? >From the research of Sergei Prokofieff, we find that the cosmic being of the Sophia can be found in the heavens from the constellations Virgo through Pisces.[i] Steiner suggests that this Sophia is the new Isis, who, like her brother Osiris, was slain by Typhon-Ahriman. Unlike Osiris, however, who was slain by Typhon-Ahriman and laid into the grave of the Earth, Isis-Sophia was slain by Lucifer and laid into the grave of the cosmos, where a mechanized approach to understanding the cosmos keeps her silent and still[ii]. It is the task of our current culture to lift the veil of Isis, to find the Divine Sophia, by seeing through the events of the world toward their spiritual origins and their relationship to the movement of the heavens. In three lectures given in 1917 entitled Wrong and Right Uses of Esoteric Knowledge, Rudolf Steiner distinguishes between the forces streaming toward us from the axis of Pisces to Virgo, and those forces streaming in from the axis of Gemini to Sagittarius. From the axis of Pisces to Virgo we find the impulses of dawn and dusk, where the activity at the threshold allows the human being to engage in freedom with the spiritual world. From the axis of Gemini to Sagittarius we find the forces of midday and midnight, wherefrom stream forces feeding the duality (or 'double') in the human being, fettering him to his animalistic nature and subjecting him, thereby, to an increasing mechanism in his rhythms, for example through the effects of modern technology. When we look to the events of September 11, 2001 we see that during that time until May of 2002, the planet Saturn moved through Gemini and came to opposition with Pluto in Sagittarius three times. Saturn can represent all that is inherent in the natural development of the human being, while Pluto was brought into our realm of experience only recently-- in 1930-with the aid of modern technology. It must be saved for another time to elaborate how Pluto can be seen in relation to what the human being creates out of unconscious activity, and how, when it opposed Saturn in 2001, we found all that was inherent in the human being having to rally forth to meet all that can result as a consequence of unconscious activity. With Mars' movement through the heavens during the next two years we are afforded an opportunity to find a new way of responding to these events by aligning ourselves to the Pisces-Virgo axis of the zodiac, the abode of the Divine Sophia, the realm of the threshold. We are challenged, we could say, to guide the Mars forces of war and conflict along the way of healing and compassion. This transformation of the Mars impulse requires the effort of the human being, for this transformation of planetary impulses must happen within the human being. We are helped to understanding our role in this by the following words of Rudolf Steiner: Stars once spoke to humanity It is world destiny they are silent now. To be aware of this silence Can be pain for earthly humanity But in this silence There grows and ripens What humanity speaks to the stars To be aware of this speaking Can be strength for Spirit Man.[iii] It is appropriate to consider Mars specifically in this context, for we know that Mars, in addition to being the planet of war and aggression, is also the planet of speech. As war and talk of war rages around us, we might ask: what is it we would speak to the stars at this time, how do we do this, and how is this individual activity transformative for society at large? When we try to answer these questions, we actually engage with the Sophia, the divine feminine, for it is the activity of the Sophia that allows us to see through world events and find the solution to begin with, not in outer activity, but by inner vision. Sophia is the wisdom that sees through the world and enables man to comprehend the world.[iv] In this we must bear in mind that the first phase of Earth evolution was marked by greater consciousness in the physical world and was guided by Mars. The task of our time, however, entails the conquest of the spiritual world and is guided by the impulses of the planet Mercury, ruler of Virgo, constellation of the divine feminine. Thus, our efforts to speak back to the stars entail our working together with the being of Sophia, in order to transform the Mars impulses of physical conquest into an inner activity of spiritual discovery, conscience and transformation. This process begins in our own souls. Steiner said it this way: One must understand that in the outer sense world men can eliminate the antagonistic attitude arising from their differences of opinions, feelings and actions only by combating and adjusting within themselves. No one is going to quarrel with a different opinion in the soul of another if he first fights against all that must be combated in himself, if he establishes harmony among the various principles of his being. He will confront the outer world as one who loves, not one who quarrels. It is all a matter of diverting the conflict from the outer world to the inner man. The forces holding sway in human nature must battle each other within man. (The Gospel of St. John and Its Relation to the Other Gospels) When we battle the forces of conflict, even world conflict, first within the self, we are speaking back to the spiritual world, to Mars, about how the human being would go forward during this phase of evolution. We can take this a step further and imagine that this inner work of redirecting our will from conquest in the physical realm to conquest of the spiritual realm creates substance, a healing substance that is used by the spiritual beings as they work toward us and with us from across the threshold. We carry this 'substance' to the spiritual world across the thresholds of sleep and death, and in specific ways throughout the festival cycle of the year. When we seek to redirect the will for conquest in the physical world, a drive that reveals itself in the imminence of war, the persistence of economic instability and the arousal of fear, we must first take up the battle within our own hearts and souls. It is challenging to imagine that, as rational lovers of peace, the forces of war are present within us, and yet, it is here we must look if we are to consciously engage in transforming our world from a warring place to a loving place, if we are to speak to Mars about what we would now receive. Here we begin to touch the activity of the Buddha as it relates to Mars, which we will save for part two of this article. Mars, in its current movement through the heavens, seems to promote and even instigate this kind of activity. We should note that at this writing and continuing through August of 2003, when Mars will be in Pisces, the Red Planet is on its way to becoming the brightest it's been in thousands of years.[v] We can watch Mars in the night sky, making an especial appearance close to the planet Venus during the morning hours of early December. They will be together all month and will be exceptional one hour before sunrise on December 1st when the crescent moon will join them in the morning sky.[vi] Since Mars began its current cycle in Leo, it is also worth considering here that come November 18 & 19, during the annual Leonid meteor showers, several scientists are predicting a meteor storm, with two to ten thousand meteors dropping from the heavens over a one-hour period! We can imagine it this way, that Mars begins a journey from the heart of the Lion, first by meeting the Sun and being 'solar-infused' with the compassion of Leo. From this meeting, Mars moves on, growing all the while to its brightest capacity when viewed from Earth, journeying awhile with Venus, then coming to opposition with Sun from Pisces to Virgo, realm of the Cosmic Sophia. In the meantime, the Leonid meteor showers rain down from the head of the Lion, strengthening us in our capacities for thinking with the heart (Leonid's rain down from head of Leo; from Leo we receive the forces for the development of the human heart). While these other cosmic events are happening, Saturn reaches its perihelion, the place in its orbit that brings it closest to the Sun. Saturn holds space for the full unfolding of the human being's capacities as seeded in the spirit germ ancient ages ago on Old Saturn. So while cosmic iron falls from the head of the Lion, increasing our thinking with the heart, Mars takes action from the place of that heart and journeys through the womb of the cosmic Sophia, bearing the opportunity to divert outer activity to the inner man, and increasing in brightness all the while. Saturn, in the meantime, is imbued with solar substance, thereby strengthening the human being's capacity to Know Thyself. The initiate of our time has a specific task. He has to look, in his search after knowledge, at the rhythmic relation of the Heavens to the Earth. To this end he has to know the Heavens and the Earth, but he must in his search hold always before him the thought of Man, in whom alone, among all the beings that are around us, Heaven and Earth work together to form a complete whole.[vii] Let this serve as an introduction to further consideration of Mars and Sophia in our times, a consideration which must include the activity of the Buddha, and how this relates to current world events. As a seed for these further considerations, we might ask: how can we better understand and commune with the multi-faceted nature of the divine Sophia? How can we respond to the many wars being waged around us and within us in the coming years by drawing on the Pisces-Virgo axis? And is a widespread spiritual-social movement embodying the Buddha-transformed Mars forces possible in our time? >>
--- Begin Message --- could you please post the body of this on BDNOW i cant get it to workk from my computer.
Dont include the personal note from mare obviously
ANd thank you.--- Begin Message ------ End Message ------ End Message ---
Okay, Jane! Here's MORE MARE to read. This was a challenging piece to write and includes only an 8th of the notes that I had compiled. It will be two years before it all comes!!! I will speak on this Saturday December 7 at Steiner House.
With love (and happy reading!),
Mare
War, Mars and the Divine Feminine
by Mary Stewart Adams for the Winter issue of
The Correspondence
The cycle of the planet Mars, traditionally associated with war and conflict, is a two-year rhythm, starting at conjunction with the Sun and culminating two years later at the next Sun-Mars conjunction. At the present time Mars is moving away from a conjunction with the Sun in Leo this past August toward its opposition with the Sun from Pisces in August 2003. Mars will conclude its current cycle in September 2004 when it again meets the Sun, this time in the sign Virgo. If it is true what Rudolf Steiner says, that it is a provision of the spiritual world that every real spiritual fact appears in the script of the starry heavens, then what can we make of this current movement of Mars?
From the research of Sergei Prokofieff, we find that the cosmic being of the Sophia can be found in the heavens from the constellations Virgo through Pisces.[i] Steiner suggests that this Sophia is the new Isis, who, like her brother Osiris, was slain by Typhon-Ahriman. Unlike Osiris, however, who was slain by Typhon-Ahriman and laid into the grave of the Earth, Isis-Sophia was slain by Lucifer and laid into the grave of the cosmos, where a mechanized approach to understanding the cosmos keeps her silent and still[ii]. It is the task of our current culture to lift the veil of Isis, to find the Divine Sophia, by seeing through the events of the world toward their spiritual origins and their relationship to the movement of the heavens.
In three lectures given in 1917 entitled Wrong and Right Uses of Esoteric Knowledge, Rudolf Steiner distinguishes between the forces streaming toward us from the axis of Pisces to Virgo, and those forces streaming in from the axis of Gemini to Sagittarius. From the axis of Pisces to Virgo we find the impulses of dawn and dusk, where the activity at the threshold allows the human being to engage in freedom with the spiritual world. From the axis of Gemini to Sagittarius we find the forces of midday and midnight, wherefrom stream forces feeding the duality (or �double�) in the human being, fettering him to his animalistic nature and subjecting him, thereby, to an increasing mechanism in his rhythms, for example through the effects of modern technology.
When we look to the events of September 11, 2001 we see that during that time until May of 2002, the planet Saturn moved through Gemini and came to opposition with Pluto in Sagittarius three times. Saturn can represent all that is inherent in the natural development of the human being, while Pluto was brought into our realm of experience only recently-- in 1930�with the aid of modern technology. It must be saved for another time to elaborate how Pluto can be seen in relation to what the human being creates out of unconscious activity, and how, when it opposed Saturn in 2001, we found all that was inherent in the human being having to rally forth to meet all that can result as a consequence of unconscious activity.
With Mars� movement through the heavens during the next two years we are afforded an opportunity to find a new way of responding to these events by aligning ourselves to the Pisces-Virgo axis of the zodiac, the abode of the Divine Sophia, the realm of the threshold. We are challenged, we could say, to guide the Mars forces of war and conflict along the way of healing and compassion. This transformation of the Mars impulse requires the effort of the human being, for this transformation of planetary impulses must happen within the human being. We are helped to understanding our role in this by the following words of Rudolf Steiner:
Stars once spoke to humanity
It is world destiny they are silent now.
To be aware of this silence
Can be pain for earthly humanity
But in this silence
There grows and ripens
What humanity speaks to the stars
To be aware of this speaking
Can be strength for Spirit Man.[iii]
It is appropriate to consider Mars specifically in this context, for we know that Mars, in addition to being the planet of war and aggression, is also the planet of speech. As war and talk of war rages around us, we might ask: what is it we would speak to the stars at this time, how do we do this, and how is this individual activity transformative for society at large? When we try to answer these questions, we actually engage with the Sophia, the divine feminine, for it is the activity of the Sophia that allows us to see through world events and find the solution to begin with, not in outer activity, but by inner vision. Sophia is the wisdom that sees through the world and enables man to comprehend the world.[iv]
In this we must bear in mind that the first phase of Earth evolution was marked by greater consciousness in the physical world and was guided by Mars. The task of our time, however, entails the conquest of the spiritual world and is guided by the impulses of the planet Mercury, ruler of Virgo, constellation of the divine feminine. Thus, our efforts to speak back to the stars entail our working together with the being of Sophia, in order to transform the Mars impulses of physical conquest into an inner activity of spiritual discovery, conscience and transformation. This process begins in our own souls. Steiner said it this way:
One must understand that in the outer sense world men can eliminate the antagonistic attitude arising from their differences of opinions, feelings and actions only by combating and adjusting within themselves. No one is going to quarrel with a different opinion in the soul of another if he first fights against all that must be combated in himself, if he establishes harmony among the various principles of his being. He will confront the outer world as one who loves, not one who quarrels. It is all a matter of diverting the conflict from the outer world to the inner man. The forces holding sway in human nature must battle each other within man. (The Gospel of St. John and Its Relation to the Other Gospels)
When we battle the forces of conflict, even world conflict, first within the self, we are speaking back to the spiritual world, to Mars, about how the human being would go forward during this phase of evolution. We can take this a step further and imagine that this inner work of redirecting our will from conquest in the physical realm to conquest of the spiritual realm creates substance, a healing substance that is used by the spiritual beings as they work toward us and with us from across the threshold. We carry this �substance� to the spiritual world across the thresholds of sleep and death, and in specific ways throughout the festival cycle of the year.
When we seek to redirect the will for conquest in the physical world, a drive that reveals itself in the imminence of war, the persistence of economic instability and the arousal of fear, we must first take up the battle within our own hearts and souls. It is challenging to imagine that, as rational lovers of peace, the forces of war are present within us, and yet, it is here we must look if we are to consciously engage in transforming our world from a warring place to a loving place, if we are to speak to Mars about what we would now receive. Here we begin to touch the activity of the Buddha as it relates to Mars, which we will save for part two of this article. Mars, in its current movement through the heavens, seems to promote and even instigate this kind of activity.
We should note that at this writing and continuing through August of 2003, when Mars will be in Pisces, the Red Planet is on its way to becoming the brightest it�s been in thousands of years.[v] We can watch Mars in the night sky, making an especial appearance close to the planet Venus during the morning hours of early December. They will be together all month and will be exceptional one hour before sunrise on December 1st when the crescent moon will join them in the morning sky.[vi]
Since Mars began its current cycle in Leo, it is also worth considering here that come November 18 & 19, during the annual Leonid meteor showers, several scientists are predicting a meteor storm, with two to ten thousand meteors dropping from the heavens over a one-hour period! We can imagine it this way, that Mars begins a journey from the heart of the Lion, first by meeting the Sun and being �solar-infused� with the compassion of Leo. From this meeting, Mars moves on, growing all the while to its brightest capacity when viewed from Earth, journeying awhile with Venus, then coming to opposition with Sun from Pisces to Virgo, realm of the Cosmic Sophia. In the meantime, the Leonid meteor showers rain down from the head of the Lion, strengthening us in our capacities for thinking with the heart (Leonid�s rain down from head of Leo; from Leo we receive the forces for the development of the human heart).
While these other cosmic events are happening, Saturn reaches its perihelion, the place in its orbit that brings it closest to the Sun. Saturn holds space for the full unfolding of the human being�s capacities as seeded in the spirit germ ancient ages ago on Old Saturn. So while cosmic iron falls from the head of the Lion, increasing our thinking with the heart, Mars takes action from the place of that heart and journeys through the womb of the cosmic Sophia, bearing the opportunity to divert outer activity to the inner man, and increasing in brightness all the while. Saturn, in the meantime, is imbued with solar substance, thereby strengthening the human being�s capacity to Know Thyself.
The initiate of our time has a specific task. He has to look, in his search after knowledge, at the rhythmic relation of the Heavens to the Earth. To this end he has to know the Heavens and the Earth, but he must in his search hold always before him the thought of Man, in whom alone, among all the beings that are around us, Heaven and Earth work together to form a complete whole.[vii]
Let this serve as an introduction to further consideration of Mars and Sophia in our times, a consideration which must include the activity of the Buddha, and how this relates to current world events. As a seed for these further considerations, we might ask: how can we better understand and commune with the multi-faceted nature of the divine Sophia? How can we respond to the many wars being waged around us and within us in the coming years by drawing on the Pisces-Virgo axis? And is a widespread spiritual-social movement embodying the Buddha-transformed Mars forces possible in our time?
[i] Sergei Prokofieff The Twelve Holy Nights and the Spiritual Hierarchies
[ii] Rudolf Steiner, The Search for the New Isis, the Divine Sophia given at Christmas, 1920
[iii] Words dedicated to Marie Steiner at Christnmas 1922??? Check this date
[iv] R. Steiner, Search for the New Isis
[v] Sky Calendar, Fourth Quarter, published by MSU, available online at www.pa.msu.edu/abrams/diary.html Highly recommended!
[vi] Rudolf Steiner made mention that for a significant reason in the distant past, the names for the planets Venus and Mercury were switched. In this article, we refer to the ascending phase of Earth evolution as being under the impulse of Mercury, but it has also been referred to as the impulse of Venus. For clarity, we are referring to the planet identified in current astronomy as Venus as Venus, and will save further discussion and elucidation until another time!
[vii] Rudolf Steiner, speaking in England in 1922 during the lecture cycle Planetary Spheres and Their Influence in Man�s Life on Earth and in the Spiritual Worlds
