Category Archives: Venus

Ancestral Medicine, astrology, Eclispes, planetary aspects, Root Medicine of the Stars, Venus

Worlds Within Worlds

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There’s something of the feeling that accompanies crumbling realities and faded illusions about the beginning of the May lunation, that comes in with this dark Moon of tropical Taurus. Its a dilapidated mansion with trees growing out through the windows, a once florid fountain now a tangle of ivy and moonflowers, ghosts drifting on the other side of darkening mirrors, speckled with age.

There’s light in its darkened interior, but, its spectral, a dream seeping through from the other side.

It feels like the Age is collapsing, on the surface not unlike stepping out the cinema mid afternoon, the film still vapour trailing its way through our mind and imagination, while the hard edges and bright light of the outside world grate against our senses.

Its a dream we are waking up from, for the hundredth time, and we know it – only this time we know there’s no going back. Once we emerge there’s a whole different set of values and realities at work, determining how we live, only, we are not yet clear about what they are.

This lunation is where we begin to get our bearings.

The new Moon sextiles Neptune and, while there is certainly more at work in the new Moon chart, under Neptunes influence, it is our innate association with the illusory and its influence on our sense of self, the clouding of our inner truth, which is highlighted here.

This colours the new lunation with a need to purge ourselves of illusion in its negative sense, a point which is driven home by the two eclipses that punctuate its mid-point and culmination. But, it also asks us to make choices, to re-evaluate and feel out the priceless riches that our inner worlds do give to us.

Illusion and metaphor are rife in this world, and the illusory in particular is instrumental in dividing its human population. We over compensate by deifying ‘truth’. But, that edifice too is becoming atomised. One person’s truth may not be another’s, but, then who has the monopoly on truth right now? Besides, the point may well be, not who is right and correct, but, beyond all facts, can we respect each other’s realities, as different as they may, in reality, be?

After all, where is the boundary between the inner and outer world.
I spent some time with the new Moon chart, felt I wasn’t seeing it, or getting beneath its skin. Its easy enough to apply the orthodox interp methodologies but something just didn’t ‘ring true’. After a while, however, after going away and coming back, and following the planetary developments around this lunation and through the next four weeks to the solar eclipse, I noticed a pair of hidden aspects which rhyme subtly with this new Moon.

Just as the Moon entered tropical Taurus Venus, the Taurean ruler, formed a tridecile with Saturn from tropical Gemini. The angle of 108 degrees between Saturn and the Evening Star, married in that moment with Mercury’s transit of the North node, brought the hidden planetary resonance to light.

The tridecile is an aspect that seeks to marry creative energy with identity, to solve the problem of who we are by giving us access to the visceral power of our own imagination, as well as to the deeply poetic nature of the experiences it can give birth to. With Saturn involved we know that we are sculpting in time, bringing a higher level of consequence to our creations, and at the same time being alerted to the narrowing of perception that can disable our wider vision.

With Venus involved we find the ruler of the new Moon revisiting the stars of the Bull with Mercury, as they were at Venus transit of the Sun and her transformation from Evening to Morning Star in May last year. The seeds of that time may well have germinated – what we were looking for then was “the raising of a counter-culture”.

In the orthodoxies, Saturn rules the third decan of Taurus, lends it a conservative and purposeful nature, knowing what it likes and seeking the comfort of familiarity. This comes out particularly in the image of the dilapidated mansion and its faded sumptuousness. But, its an illusion, in a state of breakdown, its deception made more visible for being so.

The Zodiac, it should be remembered, is an ancient mansion of meaning, at least five thousand years in the making, in the orthodox histories, but, it has very deep roots that tap into a source well beyond this, roots which are recognisable to the ancient soul in us. It is essentially a calendric device that has grown out of an intimacy between its originators, the Earth and the stars. It is an Earth bound vision that has been projected onto the starry firmament and which, in more recent times has loosened its ties with navigation across time, its portents and natural cycles, in favour of psychologies and mythologies. Its magic is that it mirrors something of our own inner state in this respect. We have projected our human self reflective imaginings into the realms above and imagined we were looking in a mirrored pool of meaning.

However, a deeper still origin brought this vision down to Earth, a root medicine of the stars on Earth that was seeded here, a panspermia of celestial origins which belongs to our extended family, in this and other worlds. We are on the cusp of revealing those origins to ourselves. But, in the interim some preparatory work within our own imaginings is necessary, a polishing of our own inner mirror. We must first remove the dust of illusion from its reflective surface.

As an expression of a seasoned world of interpenetrating multiple worlds, in which time is experienced in cycles and we relearn the meaning of navigating across space by navigating across time, we might catch a glimpse of a familiar light, shining within our own inner firmament. We may catch a whisper of that far distant song of the cosmos that is all too often now claimed as our own, bewitching ourselves into believing we are arriving here for the first time in the process. That is possibly the augury of the tridecile; it is a resonant aspect before all else, but resonances are understood, not through analysis of their parts, but through the way they pattern us. That would be the signpost to a future understanding and application of astrology which is waiting to be restored to our memory.

Being three tenths of a circle, the tridecile’s angle and energetic presence is far from obvious, unlike the Ptolemaic aspects. It does not jump out at us but sings its song as from a distance, unseen.
But, at another fundamental level 108 degrees recalls the harmonic resonance of creation, as it is enshrined in our very being, and, it is an expression of the prime fundamental that unites the divine with its manifestations.

It is the embodied number of the extended chakra system and propitiatory number of salutations to the spirits, divinities and beings of the unseen worlds. It is the beads of the Mala and distance between the Sun and the Earth expressed in solar diameters. It is the distance of the the Moon to the Earth expressed in lunar diameters.

108 is, of course, fundamental to the balanced seeding of the creative energy of the cosmos, is integral to the fifth harmonic.By themselves, these facts are fascinating by all accounts, but, in their interrelationship and integral unity they express the ineffable, the unseen, bring it into the earth realm, and find form that expresses the natural law of its inviolable inner nature.

We can read these forms via the imagination, through the eyes of the soul and the heart’s intelligence. They are within us as well as around us. Can we go further?

At new Moon the fifth harmonic also appears through an aspect between Jupiter and Uranus which, being in quintile aspect, are found to be exactly 72° apart, two tenths of the circle.

72, like 5, also relates to Venus, to the quintile pattern of her synodic relationship with the Earth. The pentacle is both star and incarnate knowledge of creation – is it a coincidence that Venus orbit is 0.72 AU, 72% the distance of the Earth from the Sun?

Venus is the fertilising influence here, by all appearances un-aspected at the dark Moon’s birth, she is also dissolving out of a square with Jupiter. With Uranus and Jupiter in fertile relationship a sense of divine imminence might prevail, but, can we foresee the nature of its off-spring?

That such resonances give rise to the cosmos, as we find it, are the imagination of the cosmos at work through manifestation, may be more important to the unfolding of this lunation than we can, in all truth, yet imagine.

In truth, ‘we are not yet awake’ to the full possibilities available to us.

This is not so much presenting us with a metaphor for ‘waking up’, as asking how much we value the imaginal and, more importantly still, how we can preserve it, protect it and ensure its survival, even as we re-emerge into the ‘real’ world.

It is what we have been led to believe is the ‘real’ world that has, in the final analysis, put distance between the understanding and knowledge that is indigenous to our spirits and souls and the in-dwelling worlds of our inner vision.

Its a curious thing to ask if too much ‘reality’ can be a poisonous thing to humans, but, that too is a question here, as well as a symptom of this separation. In a world where VR is becoming the new frontier and our minds are the new colonies, the empire building spirit knows exactly how valuable the blurring of that division between the real and the ‘virtual’ is to its purposes. But, that blurring is not the work of nature, and we need to be careful not to forget that, especially now.

These are complex and beguilingly difficult matters to navigate, and yet we must, because human nature itself is at stake if we do not.
If you give it time, you’ll find that the lunation which this dark Moon marks the beginning of will asked for deeper evaluations and choices to be made, but, under the skin of the world another is busy at work towards which we are being pulled more urgently still.

A convergence of worlds creates a labyrinthine dynamic, and, once in, we are tasked with remembering how to find our way out.
That requires a special way of looking, one which the innate nature of our imagination is naturally skilled in helping us develop, and which the poet in us will dance a wild jig to if we play its tune.

I’m reminded of the travelling fiddler who, on their way to the next village through the fields, heard the sound of a distant melody and, in trying to find its source was led in circles, until, unable to find its point of origin, all that remained was the song itself and the realisation that this was a gift from the magical realms, a sacred gift which it was the fiddler’s responsibility to carry. It is a part of that responsibility to not only honour and acknowledge the source of the tune, when it is played, but to know when and how to play it, and when not. To claim it as his or her own would bring disaster upon the fiddler and their kin.

There is something of that responsibility that needs to be heeded now, not only to avoid hubris and unnecessary conflict but to ensure that we do not bring disaster down upon ourselves.

The laws of the other world are natural laws and we must build our world with care not to violate them.

Be inspired to listen….

Blessed Be!

Ancestral Medicine, astrology, Earth healing, Goddess, Root Medicine of the Stars, Venus

our home in the stars

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A new lunar cycle of two very different halves sees Mars changing signs and Venus emerging from the underworld into the night skies through the waxing quarters…..this is soul time, a medicine to counter the new dominion, but, what is on the other side of full Moon?

Back in May last year I decided to let things roll in the planetary sphere, to lay off the writing for a while and focus more on just observing how things were unfolding. In itself this is not new, as a quick glance at publication dates for posts on this site will show. Alongside this, its one of the ways in which I work, that I won’t write unless there is something ‘coming thru’ and clearly wanting to be said. But, at the heart of this more intuitive and divinatory approach another astrological factor was calling for attention as well, that of just how important cyclicity and process is to the practice.

To see and engage with the astrological process as an ongoing journey is one of the most important ways in which astrology finds meaning and makes personal meaning available to us, in my opinion. It provides us with a mirror for our inner processes, not only as a transmutative experience, but as a way in which the ongoing experience of our terrestrial life becomes more deeply integrated with the outer cosmos; it not only informs our outer world, it nourishes our inner cosmos, brings it more fully alive.

Through much of the fifty years I have been practicing astrology and divination I have been aware of this understanding but in the course of time it has become more central, foundational. It has established itself through practice and experience as being much more fundamental to my personal relationship with astrology than perhaps horary concerns and specific moments in time, marked by aspects and transits.

Those aspects of astrology have always been active too, and I have an active client base, many having become good and important friends, but, once we entered ‘lockdown’ and the world appeared to be taking a more inward turn, I decided that I needed to look more deeply into the realities of cyclicity and process, to go deeper and re-appraise them.

And a curious thing happened once I started to follow this focus – the area of my work which does look specifically at and bring out the significance of aspects and transits, especially in readings and working with people on their natal and progressed charts, quite suddenly began to gather energy.

This has been one of the busiest times I have known as the energy levels in both sides of this work has risen consistently throughout the last nine months – but, what I also noticed is that there was a corresponding influx of new energy at work in the world, and nowhere was this more visible than in nature.

May 2020 also saw profound changes in the human world, for sure, but, in the heavens it was the planet Venus that really caught my eye.

Nature and Venus might well go hand in hand, in our thoughts and symbolic associations, but, Venus also has a beautiful cyclical relationship with the Earth, expressed through her phases as Morning and Evening Star. When Venus entered retrograde in mid May last year and subsequently began her journey into the underworld, to return as the Morning Star in June, Nature herself seemed to be making that increase in inner energy more visible.

I began to wonder if She was leading the way in my own change of focus – following her, in fact, proved to be an unbelievably beautiful and rewarding undertaking and, this post has in many ways grown directly out of that journey.

The current new Moon in Aries, happening as I write, is the perfect marker on that journey, as a place of emergence – some of what I experienced will find its way into this and upcoming posts, but, its the world process that is now happening that is really grabbing attention, and there is much more to it than the establishment of a ‘new dominion’. And, what is more, Venus figures significantly once again in its corresponding celestial unfoldment. What this has to tell us is, in my humble opinion, of the greatest value to us now.

The planet Venus is in an emergent state once again, travelling back into the night world, having passed behind the Sun on March 26th 2021. Their conjunction in the sixth degree of Aries signalling the end of Venus journey in the guise of the ‘Morning Star’, which began back in May last year.

As I write, Mercury too is becoming obscured within the solar radiance and as it passes behind the Sun, is also emerging from day to night role. Mercury will first be visible again, close to Venus in the skies at dusk, in the period around Beltane, at the beginning of May.

One significance for us now is that the first half of the new lunation leading up to full Moon in Scorpio on April 27th sees only three of the five classical planets visible in the skies.

This brief period of invisibility suggests that self assessment and introspective contemplation is one of the ways in which we can work with the new lunation during its first two quarters. While this might sound decidedly meditative, this might well in fact be the best time to deal with important choices, in preparation for the following lunation,  as following the Scorpio full Moon there will be much more emotional energy being activated, Mars having entered Cancer on the 23rd April.

Mars transit of Cancer will trigger a square with Chiron in Aries and, towards the end of the transit, an opposition with Pluto, and the ongoing archetypal tensions associated with these planets will be hightened between then and full Moon, especially as the Moon squares Pluto on the 26th.

Mars passed over the Moon’s north node at the beginning of the month, within a few hours of Venus transit of the Sun in fact, which could have been a warning to pay heed particular to our future through the next few months. As the red planet now moves away through the arc of the zodiac that follows the Sun’s path from Cancer to Sagittarius, and from mid year is joined by the remaining inner planets, the months up to December will be peppered with oppositions to Jupiter, Saturn and the outer planets, with a monthly regularity.

The balance needed to navigate these aspects is going to be highlighted in areas of weakness found in the part of the chart opposing Mars, and this makes the next few weeks especially valuable in preparation; if only used for simplifying our burdens and building a calm centre, we will see the benefits in the near future.

The inner Venus and Mercury, now at work in sextile with Mars, become very important through this time, making of the first and second quarter of the Aries lunation an opportunity to make peace with ourselves, to create a sense of sanctuary in our lives and to make sure we are not neglecting the most important things in life, those that matter most to us personally.

There are simple if really practical things that can be undertaken through this time, and its perfect for simply ‘getting our house in order’; some of this also makes use of the current increased presence of Saturn in the planetary mix.

For example, this is the perfect time to think about inheritance, to assess the energetic imprint you are creating in life and that you will leave behind. This is certainly heavily in view in the world at large now, but, its personal aspects are really highlighted now and will become more so with Mars ingress of Cancer.

Make a symbolic act of updating your will, write one if you haven’t already, but, take stock of the fundamentals and use this as a way of looking on life as a practical doorway, in the most grounded sense, to the sacred.

Its not about death so much as being about keying into your heart, its connection to source, and letting its inner wisdom be a strong guiding voice in your worldly affairs.

All things are included in this process, and its a very good habit to get into as well, but, taking this approach to life will matter even more and make a bigger difference in the second half of the year if we pay attention to it now.

Venus and Mercury’s hidden influence from Aries, and then Taurus as we run up to full Moon, will help the dust settle. By the time the shift in Mars energy lights up our emotional field, and brings home the importance of trust and the reliability of friends and family, we will be able to utilise the protective and passionate inner build up of energy that Mars transit signifies with greater confidence and clarity.

The Cancer field emphasises emotional boundaries as practical edges to our personal field of sensitivity, and Mars transit may highten that sensitivity. The ‘sanctuary of the now’ is where we can find strength and refuge from having those boundaries stressed and triggered, and that is why getting our affairs in order now makes sense – we have had a long period of emotional pollution to deal with and while cleansing this toxicity from our system is another important aspect of this work, it all becomes a lot easier when we have cleared the ‘in-box’, so to speak, and strengthened our personal position.

Cancer’s sector of the zodiac also carries memories of the ‘great mother’ aspect of life, is connected with times in which the Earth Mother was given respect and honour, was more central in how life was lived among humans.

That feeling of being in sacred relationship with the natural world, which is so heavily under stress and challenged in our times, even while Mars may bring a supressed anger to bear in response, can also be strengthened now, especially while the world shifts gear and experiences a localised lifting of restrictions. In fact, its important that we do pay attention to that sacred relationship now, and not be distracted by the appearance of ‘normality’ or return to at least a partial sense of freedoms with the lifting of ‘lockdowns’.

One of the lessons of the last year has been to pay attention to what might be on our mind more closely, a point which I made quite central to the last post and how the larger forces are shaping our world. But, for all that external pressure, the real challenge is to maintain our true nature, regardless.

One of the amazing things to experience during this time, as nature regained her vitality, as rivers and skies cleared and pollution levels dropped, was to witness how resiliant and quick to respond Nature is, given the chance. Her true nature and creative energy never falters.

Witnessing this it seemed like the most natural thing to me, in following  Venus and spending more time with the land, within nature, to honour the life force, the great mother and her incredible dynamism and presence. I found myself gathering clay, sculpting simple images of the goddess, installing them at the ancestor shrine and so making deeper connections with them, the old guardians of this beautiful planet who sing at the roots of all our ancestral tree, through this – its a powerful healing technique, to speak to those ancestors who preceed the injury and suffering that has been passed down the line into the present, and to petition them to help restore to the present the power of their living relationship and symbiosis with the living Earth, the nature spirits and children of the Earth Mother.

This is a very poweful time to make offerings back to our planet, through this lunation and beyond, to get into a deeper relationship with Her in this period of transition – She will return our call, and keep open the intimate connections we create and revitalise now.

During the nine months that Venus has been in Morning Star mode she has leant herself very much to powerful sacred work in the world. She commands transformative energy in the earth plane while in this form. The transition into Evening Star mode, a return to the sky realms and more mysterious nature of the night and star light signals a sublimation of that earthly power, a call to become aware of the greater cosmos, both as an active mirror for our life experiences, and as an active inner experience.

The star mother, who may be more of the Sophianic nature of the Great Mother, as deep Source, comes into play. This is going to resonate with people who identify especially with the galactic, the star realms, in their spirit connections.

Being a manifestation of the flow between the spirit and the earth realms, the soul’s work is naturally oriented towards bringing these connections alive. Soul groups provide an indication of the nature of this link, its ‘flow’ and how it can consciously be worked with in this life.

I have found this area of ‘natal’ work coming up more and more in recent months, especially in working with friends who are returning to their charts for a deeper look. I believe that a planetary surge in soul group activation is now underway. The levels of activation are increasing, as is the conscious intent to fully manifest the purpose these soul groups embody through individual lives.

This is super important to the counter-surgent energy that Venus signalled through taking on her Morning Star role in May, and is exactly in sync with both the resurgence of Nature herself and our quieter, more inner focus. I see them as a singular process, braided into many levels of realisation, that describe a re-souling of the earth plane.

Ultimately, this speaks of reintegrating our celestial nature on earth, and in turn of finding our home in the stars. We do not need to leave here to make this a reality, in fact, Earth is deeply invested in this process, and helping us fulfil the potential we carry in being a part of it, while on Earth.

Soul work, in astrological practice, provides a bridge between the realms which Venus embodies in her twin roles, the celestial and the terrestrial, the spiritual and the physical, and I see the integration of Venus transits within the larger cosmological process now unfolding as of imense importance.

They offer us a working framework for developing the strength and effectiveness of what you could call our cosmological immune system, but, their grounding nature also means that we do so through direct manifest experience, and that fundamental necessity is integral to anchoring the re-souling process itself.

The opportunities offering themselves to us now, despite all the restrictions and turmoil, to grow soul and really turn on our true, innate power as individuals and participants in living the intent of the soul, as well as its ‘group’, are full of promise.

This is our time to rise, and to keep rising – lets make it count.

Blessed be!

If you are interested to know more about your own soul group and the means by which you can manifest its intent, I work with the method described by the great astrologer, Robert Blaschke. This effective and beautiful approach to living astrology empowers us to identify soul groups and their modus operandi through which we can manifest their intent in our own lives. Its a very rewarding aspect of astrological work, very confirmative and empowering, and takes this work as an evolutionary process to the next level.

Robert is sadly no longer with us in the physical plane, but his profound insights into the metaphysical nature of astrological work, and its practical application, live on and were one of the major grounding influences in my own practice.

I highly recommend all of his written work, much of which can be found here, alongside some great tutorials.

Ancestral Medicine, astrology, Earth healing, fixed stars, Root Medicine of the Stars, Venus

A Message from the Stars

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Goddesses of the sky (1)

I want to tell you a story thats happening now. It is unfolding in the sky and under the Earth. Its sheroes are the Goddesses of deep earth wisdom.

Our story begins on the eve of Orion’s advent. Since ancient times this day, which now coincides with May 11th in our modern calendar, was used by the ancients and ancestral star seers to mark time and terrestrial events, through significant risings such as that of Orion’s constellation and of Orion’s Dog Star Sirius.

But Orion is not alone here. The great hunter is looking directly towards the head of the Bull belonging to the constellation of Taurus, and beyond that, above the Bull’s horns, lies the constellation of Persius, slayer of Medussa, as the myth would have it.

As Orion sets at dusk on this day, Venus, poised to turn retrograde on the 13th, is now visible in the falling night sky shining from the very tip of the northern most horn of the Bull.

Venus, who currently travels in the guise of Aphrodite Urania, the Evening Star, daughter of Gaia, is still very bright in the evening sky, but as she turns and begins travelling back to meet the Sun, her face will darken and very quickly become a bright crescent before being swallowed up in the Sun’s rays.

In transiting between Earth and Sun she arrives at her closest point to our planet and  from here enters the underworld on the way to being reborn as the Morning Star, Aphrodite Pandemos. In this guise she will journey as daughter of Dione, another name of the great Earth Goddess. Her journey through this solar gateway into the chthonic realm begins exactly on the Bull’s forehead – but, there is more still.

While all this is happening Mercury, the planet of messages and transactions between the worlds, is passing through the constellation of Taurus, running close by the Pleiades star cluster at the heart of the Bull, to emerge from between the horns of Taurus before his ingress to one of his home signs, Gemini. As he does so he meets with asteroid Eurydike and SDO Sedna, and together they will fall into alignment with Algol the brightest star in the Persius constellation.

Mercury will move on but Euridike and Sedna will remain in exact alignment with Algol on the day of Venus transit of the Sun and entry into the underworld. Algol is the star of Medussa. The goddesses are joining forces.

Mercury is alerting us to the common ground shared by these powerful women, and a deeply significant message that the Goddess is bringing in Her return journey. First let’s revisit Medussa because her story is of the greatest significance here.

Medussa, is a great seer who has become totally distorted into a terrifying gorgon. The very myth of Persius is an explicit portrayal of the appropriation of ancient feminine wisdom, of the Earth goddess and her sisters. It clearly portrays the violent methodology which the new masculine sky gods wielded, that was responsible for suppressing and destroying so much of the ancient legacy that, in truth, belongs to us all.

Such was the indigenous legacy of the great living lineages of priestesses and initiatrix, carrying and protecting chthonic wisdom. As is so often the case, the symbology has not only suffered at the hands of the masculine gods, it has been used to violate the Goddess.

But, Medussa was a seer in this tradition.

Many traditions of seership emphasise the importance of being able to hold a high degree of clarity and focus in the midst of distraction, and extreme conditions, not unlike our own, and have built excercises into the training that follows initiation that help develop this faculty. It is almost as if we are now entering the heart of that training. To do so willingly is the invitation.

Algol is associated with Medussa and placed in the hands of Persius in his constellation. But, we have been given the end result of a story that makes Persius look the hero, and it is the vilification of Medussa that enabled him to rise to this false status.

Medussa was the priestess raped by Poseidon/Neptune in Minerva/Athena’s temple. And yet it was She and not the gods who was held responsible for this violation by Athena – Athena, the motherless child of Zeus. For her ‘crime’ Medussa was given her serpent hair and deadly reputation, all in return for a violation of the sacred precincts, in which she was not the perpetrator, but, its victim. But, this too is the propagandised version, designed to justify the misogynist agenda.

In fact Medussa was an initiatrix in the spiritual path of the cthonic earth Goddess, a divine mortal possessed of extreme Beauty, Power and Grace. 

The snake maned priestess decapitated by Perseus has little resemblance to this vision of the fully empowered divinity in woman; her symbols turned against her, she has been demonised to the point of dissociation from her roots.

Until our time this has been the political purpose served by the myth, a suitable repository for the ‘unacceptable’ face of initiated and empowered woman; a mirror of that which men have been conditioned to demote and despise, She is also the image of the defiled yet all powerful Earth feared of men in their separatist madness.

The curse of petrification she carries is rather a testament to the immense power her eyes radiate. It is the symbol of initiation into the very Earth herself, overturned.

She has incredibly potent vision, yes, but, it is the snakes that signify her source of power. It is the power of creation that flows within the earth realms, the lightingbolt that condenses light into plasma, that illuminates the neural pathways of the unconditioned pleroma.

Snakes are its living symbol and medicine animal. Petrification is the opposite of its effect rather than its corrollary, but it turns the symbol of initiation into the Earth mysteries into an instrument of fear, rather than empowerment of the soul.

The truth is far from that which we have been indoctrinated into believing by the myth. In the light of this knowledge, Persius looks more of a coward and fool than a hero. His name comes from the Greek pérthein, “to waste, ravage, sack, destroy”, and literally means ‘sacker of cities’. He is venerated as a hero for slaying monsters, but had been blinded, programmed by his own thirsts and needs, to the very nature of the encounter he was offered through Medussa and the opportunity it gifted to him.

The gift of Medussa is seership, of connection with the creative power of Earth herself,  of her inner cycles and the endless spiral of life, the very powers that keep us vitally connected with and embedded within the cosmos beyond this world.

In the human frame this power can be sourced at the deeper centres, but, its voice is most clearly heard through our subtler senses, through our intuitive insight, and its wisdom equally accessed through gut feeling as the higher vibrational layers of our energy body.

Some call this primal, but, while it is certainly intense, it could just as easily be called sublime, trancendant even. It lives in ancient sites, waiting to be connected with. It runs throughout the Earth, a living river of many streams beneath our feet. It connects us with the stars, a truth known to many of the seeing traditions.

In slaying the Medussa Perseus was obeying the rational dictates of his goddess Athena, the myth overlaying symbolism onto the historical transference of primary feminine power and wisdom to the more secular and masculinised figure of the goddess born fully armed from Zeus forehead.

Athena kept Medussa’s head as the protective boss of her shield, ironically signifying that her sacred law was to be regarded as beyond question; she brought martial means to maintaining law. She was wise, still, but her gaze was very much on the world of men.

However, the antidote to this weapon of fear which Medussa’s gaze had become, can be found exactly facing the constellation of Perseus in the constellation of Ophiuchus, rising in the eastern night sky as Venus sets in the west in this time.

Ophiuchus the serpent bearer holds the snake in both hands and applies its primary healing powers to the mortal world. Indeed, it is said Ophiuchus, or Asclepius as he is also identified, was the greatest of healers, so much so that he angered the gods with his ability to restore life to the dead and, ultimately, paid for his abilities with exile to the star realms.

Ironically, in the end it was Athena who made the crucial difference here as she bestowed two phials of the Medussa’s blood into Asclepius possession, one from Medussa’s left side which gave the power to mete out death, the other from her right side which gave the power of to overcome death. The healer chose to use the latter and in so doing tipped the balance.

But, it is in this balance across the opposing sides of the ecliptic that we find the goddess and the primal creative wisdom represented in our times. Indicative of healing the Geminian division between the right and left brain it is Venus message to us that our encounter with the Medussa can allow this balance to be restored. Medussa’s head is the embodied consiousness of that primal wisdom which has been initiated into a deep understanding of all that creates, heals and destroys within the natural flow of life, the Earth Goddess wisdom – we must restore it to the body of our world and, trusting her guidance, follow the pathways it opens to us. 

Both these constellations point to the balance of extremes, not in duality, but as a living power to be grasped in both hands.

There is a trace of this in our dowsing of the earth powers and subterranean water courses. We have the power to connect with these powers built into our human frame, the senses we need to do so are indigenous to us. But, this is a special time, in which the powers of the Earth mother, her wisdom and its message for us offer a corrective and healing for the world, and for us, Her children. 

With  care and practice, prayer and veneration where it is due, we can restore these powers to our lineage and our connection with the Earth, her soul and spirit.

The Medussa’s head and its primary state of fully awakened unconditioned consciousness is not to be feared, but, re-united with our own creative energy – in doing so the restorative healing it can unleash in our world is unlimited.

Sedna’s own story, a reflection of Medussa’s in many ways, joins forces with Medussa and with Eurydice, who was ‘bitten’ by the snake and, as the myth would have it, consigned to the underworld. We can now see that this too is an appropriated story, hidden in its core the very image of the initiates journey. This will pass on to Mercury, a message for us now. Venus will bring that message home at this turning of the tides.

Mercury will meet with Venus on the 21st May on the horn of the Bull, just as the Sun passes by the Pleiades. One day later the Moon joins the Sun in the heart of the Bull. On 4th June Venus transits the Sun between the Bull’s horns. One day later a penumbral eclipse of the Moon ushers in a new relationship to the Goddess from the constellation of Ophiucus and the sign of Sagittarius. It is time for our lives to embody a new and ancient story.

Undoubtedly, Medussa, Venus and all the representatives of the divine Earth now challenge Us to respond. Only fear and conditioning stand in the way of doing so. But, we know what is asked of us to overcome these obstacles. And the gifts we stand to gain are our own, once stolen, now ready to be restored.

Blessed Be!

the Chauvet goddess and bulls head