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French Onion Soup

Serves 4

Photo by Randy Mayor, MyRecipes.com

Rick M sends us this recipe as we anticipate cooler days ahead.  From an old fashioned French onion soup recipe, it will delight you with croutons and grated cheese; just the way they used to serve it at les Halles in Paris.

Calories: 335    Preparation: 15 minutes    Cooking: 30 minutes

                                  4 large red or yellow onions;

2 soup spoons of virgin olive oil;

2 soup spoons of butter;

1 heaping soup spoon of flour;

1 1/2 quarts of cold water;

4 slices of bread;

4 oz of grated Gruyère;

Salt and pepper.

1. Peel the onions and cut them into thin slices;
2. Melt a tablespoon of oil and a tablespoon of butter in a deep pot and add the onions, cooking them until they are transparent, but not brown;
3. Once transparent, dust them with the flour and stir them with a wooden spoon, over a hot fire, to brown the flour;
4. Add the water to the sliced onions, and the salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil and then let the mixture simmer for 20 minutes;
5. While simmering, cut the slices of bread into quarters and sauté them in the remaining oil and butter, until golden brown;
6. Place the golden-brown bread on the bottom of oven-proof soup bowls and set them in a hot, 400 degree oven, for several minutes;
7. When the onion liquid has cooked for the 20 minutes, pour it into the 4 prepared, hot bowls.  Sprinkle heavily with the grated cheese and place the mixture into the hot oven for about 12 minutes.  Remove from the oven and serve immediately.

Tags: French Onion Soup

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/01/astronomy-meeting-highlights-new-planets-hubble-images.html

 By Carlos Z, Overheard on Rosenet

 About a year ago a new planet system was discovered in constellation Cygnus.

 Now, a new diamond planet has been discovered in constellation Serpens:

http://www.space.com/12731-diamond-alien-planet-discovered-neutron-star.html

 The Rosicrucian Brethren wrote in the Fama Fraternitatis [The Confessio manifesto 1610 – 1615]:

 Chapter VII. We declare that God, before the end of the world, shall create a great flood of spiritual light to alleviate the sufferings of humankind. Falsehood and darkness which have crept into the arts, sciences, religions, and governments of humanity–making it difficult for even the wise to discover the path of reality–shall be forever removed and a single standard established, so that all may enjoy the fruitage of truth. We shall not be recognized as those responsible for this change, for people shall say that it is the result of the progressiveness of the age. Great are the reforms about to take place; but we of the Fraternity of R.C. do not arrogate to ourselves the glory for this divine reformation, since many there are, not members of our Fraternity but honest, true and wise men, who by their intelligence and their writings shall hasten its coming. We testify that sooner the stones shall rise up and offer their services than that there shall be any lack of righteous persons to execute the will of God upon earth.

 Chapter VIII. That no one may doubt, we declare that God has sent messengers and signs in the heavens, namely, the new stars in Serpentarius and Cygnus, to show that a great Council of the Elect is to take place.  [editorial emphasis] This proves that God reveals in visible nature–for the discerning few–signs and symbols of all things that are coming to pass. God has given man two eyes, two nostrils, and two ears, but only one tongue. Whereas the eyes, the nostrils, and the ears admit the wisdom of Nature into the mind, the tongue alone may give it forth. In various ages there have been illumined ones who have seen, smelt, tasted, or heard the will of God, but it will shortly come to pass that those who have seen, smelt, tasted, or heard shall speak, and truth shall be revealed. Before this revelation of righteousness is possible, however, the world must sleep away the intoxication of her poisoned chalice (filled with the false life of the theological vine) and, opening her heart to virtue and understanding, welcome the rising sun of Truth.

Chapter IX. We have a magic writing, copied from that divine alphabet with which God writes His will upon the face of celestial and terrestrial Nature. With this new language we read God’s will for all His creatures, and just as astronomers predict eclipses so we prognosticate the obscurations of the church and how long they shall last. Our language is like unto that of Adam and Enoch before the Fall, and though we understand and can explain our mysteries in this our sacred language, we cannot do so in Latin, a tongue contaminated by the confusion of Babylon.

 Chapter X. Although there are still certain powerful persons who oppose and hinder us–because of which we must remain concealed–we exhort those who would become of our Fraternity to study unceasingly the Sacred Scriptures, for such as do this cannot be far from us. We do not mean that the Bible should be continually in the mouth of man, but that he should search for its true and eternal meaning, which is seldom discovered by theologians, scientists, or mathematicians because they are blinded by the opinions of their sects. We bear witness that never since the beginning of the world has there been given to man a more excellent book than the Holy Bible. Blessed is he who possesses it, more blessed he who reads it, most blessed he who understands it, and most godlike he who obeys it.

A newly discovered alien planet that formed from a dead star _._,_.___

 [Editor’s Note:]

The Confessio excerpt (below) that is taken from Ger W’s, Max Heindel and The Rosicrucian Fellowship, Addendum 1, is a more direct translation of these early documents of the Brothers of the Rose Cross (closer to source) whereas the former version is more interpretive.

chapter 7.  So we mortals must be assured of one thing: God has decided the world—which no longer will be submerged. The rotation of the big globe will by degrees slip creation into science to alter the acts and the reigns of men by which the world was mainly darkened. Meanness, darkness and shackles will yield to truth, light and dignity to ease human misery just as God ordered Adam to depart fromEden.

From darkness, an infinite variety of opinions originated; forgery and false doctrine made choice difficult for most people. On one side, the prominence of the philosophers and on the other side, the truth of experience brought confusion. In the event that these things, as we trust, will finally be removed, and we instead will see a constant guideline, we indeed shall have to thank the workers concerned, but the great work in its full extent we must credit to our blessed juncture.

Just as we acknowledge that many outstanding, shrewd thinkers have contributed much to the imminent reformation by their considerations, only to us would such a tremendous task be imposed; yet we take it upon ourselves to forego fame. From the spirit of Christ, our Savior, we testify that we would rather that stones offer themselves than we would lack executers for the Divine plan.

chapter 8.  To make His will known, God sent messengers ahead, namely stars, which appeared in the Serpent and the Swan and such, as great signs in His really grand plan, in order to help us to learn how anything assembled from human discernment would be subservient to His hidden writings. The book of Nature therefore is open to the eyes of all and discloses to everyone, although few can read the whole, let alone understand.

As there are two organs in the human head with which to hear, two with which to see, two with which to smell, and one with which to speak, and it would be futile to desire from the ears, speech, or hearing from the eyes, so there have been times in which one saw, others in which one heard, and again others in which one smelled. It yet remains that within a short time, the tongue will also receive its honor, that what once had been seen, heard and smelled, will at last be spoken, after the world sleeps off the flush of its poisoning and intoxicating cup, and walks to meet the early rising sun with opened heart, uncovered head, and unshod feet, cheering and shouting.

chapter 9.  In the same way that God spread characters and his alphabet in the Holy Script, He has thus, at the wonderwork of his creation, clearly imprinted in the heavens the earth and the animals, so that we, just like the astronomer foresees eclipses, may recognize in advance the obscurations of the Church and the duration.

We derived all of our magic from such characters and on the basis thereof assembled a new language in which we also express the nature of things. It therefore would not be surprising if we would express less well in the remaining languages and in this Latin. For these languages certainly do not sound like those of Adam or Enoch, but were desecrated by the Babylonian confusion of tongues.

chapter 10.  We may not in the least mention that, for as long as some eagle’s feathers somewhat oppose our affairs we urge the exclusive, indefatigable and continuous reading of the Holy Scripture. One who takes great pleasure in this has drawn close to our Brotherhood. Our central rule is this, that in this great wonderwork of the world no letter stands which is not engraved in our memory. They who have only the Bible to center their striving for knowledge as a guideline for their lives and who make with it an abridged summary of the whole world, are the nearest to us and most equal to us.

We do not demand from such men that they permanently have their mouths full of these things, but that they bring the sense of it through all ages to the world. Also, we are not in the habit of dishonoring the divine oracular language, where the number of interpretations are unlimited—some remain devoted to the persuasion of their group, others with old malice mock the Bible interpretations, which are kneadable as wax, because they are concurrently available to theologians, philosophers, physicians and astrologers.

It rather is our duty to testify that from the beginning of the world, humanity was given no greater, more wonderful and more salutary work than the Holy Scriptures. Blessed is one who possesses it; more blessed is one who reads it; the most blessed is he who gets a thorough grounding of it, while the one who understands much and obeys is the most like God.

Tags: Cygnus and Serpens, Elder Brothers, planet discoveries, prophecy

                       CREED OR CHRIST

Skylight in Healing Building Chapel

No man loves God who hates his kind,

       Who tramples on his brother’s heart and soul;

Who seeks to shackle, cloud, or fog the mind

       By fears of hell has not perceived our goal.

God-sent are all religions blest;

       And Christ, the Way, the Truth, the Life,

To give the heavy laden rest

       And peace from sorrow, sin, and strife.

Behold the Universal Spirit came

       To ALL the churches, not to one alone;

On Pentecostal morn a tongue of flame

       Round EACH apostle as a halo shone.

Since then, as vultures ravenous with greed,

       We oft have battled for an empty name,

And sought by dogma, edict, cult, or creed,

       To send each other to the quenchless flame.

Is Christ then twain?  Was Cephas, Paul,

       To save the world, nailed to the tree?

Then why divisions here at all?

       Christ’s love enfolds both you and me.

His pure sweet love is not confined

       By creed which segregate and raise a wall.

His love enfolds, embraces human kind,

       No matter what ourselves or Him we call.

Then why not take Him at His word?

       Why hold to creeds which tear apart?

But one thing matters, be it heard

       That brother love fill every heart.

There’s but one thing the world has need to know.

       There’s but one balm for all our human woe:

There’s but one way that leads to heaven above—

       That way is human sympathy and love.  

                                                            -Max Heindel.

Tags: creed, Max Heindel, Rosicrucian philosophy

            What does it mean TO LIVE LIFE?  Of course we are all living.  To live Life means much more than that.  IT MEANS TO DO ALWAYS ONE’S DUTY AT THE RIGHT TIME.

            Now most human beings do not at all do their duty at the right time.  They have no idea of the necessity of doing it at the right time.  Imagine an orchestra playing; the duty of each musician, according to the laws of orchestration, is to sound his notes, to play his passage, at a certain time; and if he and his fellow musicians do it properly, we have beautiful and harmonious music.

Leonard Bernstein Conducting

           But if each musician were to lay his notes a little earlier or a little later, what would happen?  There would be discord.  In a way man cannot play false when he plays the right notes at the wrong time.  This is the very thing we do when we individuals fail in our duties.  We either do the right thing at the wrong moment, or else when the right moment comes we forget our obligations.  The result for us is discord. 

            The discord which we create in this way is the most detrimental, because if our actions are maladjusted and ill-timed, we start new causes which will have their results at a given time; and if the causes are started at the wrong time the effects also will come at the wrong time.  Either way we plant the seeds of disharmony, and for that very reason so often we do not seem adjusted to our lives, and find that things continually happen to us in a disharmonious way. 

            Our days are made up of a number of small events, some of which are seemingly important, some of no importance; but there is usually something that does not work properly, and the cause of it is an action hidden in the past.

            We had not performed our duty at the right time.  We must always see if there is an obligation to meet, and we must not fail in it. 

            If there is a greater duty to perform and a smaller one to perform, and we see that there is some one who is able to perform the smaller duty in our place, we are justified in leaving it and taking up the greater.  But if there is no one to perform the smaller duty and the smaller was the first to appear, we must accomplish that one first; for after all it is nothing but a human concept of smallness or greatness.  Everything is great in a way—and everything is small in a way. 

            In a symphony one note is not more important than another note.  They are all equally important.  The most delicate note is just as important as the deepest sounding one, because each has its proper place.  Therefore, we must not forget that Life is just as scientific as the music of an orchestra, and that if we want to live our lives harmoniously, we must play our part as conscientiously as we would in an orchestra.  Life is one great orchestra.  That is what is meant by living Life, TO DO ONE’S DUTY ALWAYS AT THE PROPER TIME AND NEVER TO WORRY ABOUT THE RESULT.  THE RESULT WILL COME RIGHT INEVITABLY IF WE ACT RIGHTLY.  There is a Law that will show the way.  When we shall know the Law, we will move through our lives in serenity.     [Excerpt from Science of Being.]

Quote:  I always had a repulsive need to be something

more than human. 

David Bowie

                                     Easter Wings

                                       By George Herbert

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,

Though foolishly he lost the same,

Decaying more and more,

Till he became

Most poore:

With thee

O let me rise

As larks, harmoniously,

And sing this day thy victories:

Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne

And still with sicknesses and shame

Thou didst so punish sinne,

That I became

Most thinne,

With thee

Let me combine,

And feel this day thy victorie:

For, if I imp my wing on thine,

Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

Herbert’s “Easter Wings”, a pattern poem in which the work is not only meant to be read, but its shape is meant to be appreciated: In this case, the poem was printed (original image here shown) on two pages of a book, sideways, so that the lines suggest two birds flying upward, with wings spread out.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Herbert 

Tags: living harmoniously George Herbert

Rick M sent encouraging research results for coffee drinkers, below; and it reminded us of a favorite summer beverage recipe.

If you like quick and easy and cheap, now you can also have delicious, refreshing, and healthy in a summer cooler with a good chance that the coffee consumption will to some extent suppress the diabetes-favoring honey and milk.  The following recipe for a lighter, frappuccino-type cooler uses much less sweetener than most soft drinks and contains no corn syrup or artificial sweeteners.

Bring 1 cup of water to boil in a two-cup container and remove from heat.  Add:

1/2 cup of instant coffee powder

1/2 cup of honey. 

Stir to dissolve.  Store the syrup in a squeeze-bottle container in the refrigerator and when you want a tall cooler, squeeze a couple of squirts into a tall glass.  Add ice, milk, and water — about one-third of each.   Stir or shake and enjoy.

Milk, rice milk, soy milk, or almond milk; all are great. 

Epidemiological surveys have demonstrated that habitual coffee consumption reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes. The aim of this work was to study the anti-diabetic effect of coffee and caffeine in spontaneously diabetic KK-A^y mice. KK-A^y mice were given regular drinking water (controls) or 2-fold diluted coffee for 5 weeks. Coffee ingestion ameliorated the development of hyperglycemia and improved insulin sensitivity. White adipose tissue mRNA levels of inflammatory cytokines (MCP-1, IL-6, and TNF?), adipose tissue MCP-1 concentration, and serum IL-6 concentration in the coffee group were lower than the control group. Moreover, coffee ingestion improved the fatty liver. Caffeine ingestion as drinking water also caused an amelioration of hyperglycemia and an improvement of fatty liver. These results suggest that coffee exerts a suppressive effect on hyperglycemia by improving insulin sensitivity, partly due to reducing inflammatory cytokine expression and improving fatty liver. Moreover, caffeine may be one of the effective anti-diabetic compounds in coffee.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20405946

Tags: caffeine, diabetes, iced coffee

image from wikipedia - Lake Huron 9-9-99

 

We may not have seen this phenomenon of nature, but it is wonderful and awe inspiring. Usually at the time when it occurs the sky seems to hang very low over the water; there is a tense feeling in the air of depression or concentration. Gradually it seems as if a point in the sky reaches down toward the water, and the waves in a certain spot seem to leap upward until both sky and water meet in a swirling mass.

…This is the secret of all the miraculous prayers which have been recorded: the person who prayed for something was always intensely in earnest…….. and thus he lifted himself up into the very realms of the divine and brought down the response from the Father.

Tags: Healing, prayer, waterspout