Tag Archives: Great Mother Goddess

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

Root Medicine of the Stars

Reality Checks – First Quarter 2015

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cave nebula

The quarter between December Solstice and March Equinox began  with a new Moon and, just a few hours later, we saw Saturn entering tropical Sagittarius. Following the turning point of the solar cycle these lunar and planetary influences are now emerging with increasing effect. Against the backdrop of the final two squares between Pluto and Uranus, which frame this quarter, we are now poised at the beginning of a sea-change that will unfold throughout 2015 and beyond.

Planetary activation of the fire signs by Saturn, Jupiter and Uranus in particular will give pace and a radical edge to much of the year. But, it is the Saturn transit of Sagittarius, which takes us through 2017, that augers the predominant change of mood. Over the first half of this transit, we will see Saturn’s square to Neptune begin replacing Uranus square with Pluto as the most defining planetary aspect in the field. The first quarter of the 2015 solar cycle is a time in which this aspect will build, but, the lunar pulse through this time is most intriguing, showing us how we can optimise our personal path effectively.

The lunations up to equinox open and close on the cusps of Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces and Aries. These are powerful lunations with the full Moons heavily aspected and, subsequently, the second and third of these will be given their own readings. In the context of this quarter the first lunation sets the template.

The 0º Capricorn lunation point, with Sun, Moon and Earth in synchronous transition into new land, marks this as a clearly defined point of renewal. Far from simply being a time for setting new intents for the year, this is also an opportunity to balance goals against our personal means of achieving them. Neither will this be about staying on familiar ground ~ prepare to expand your horizons over the next 2-3 years! As with any time of growth or journey into uncharted territory, preparation, foresight and provision of essentials is of the highest significance. Each lunation provides a strong focus in which to make the necessary adjustments and, with the Capricorn lunation, the primary area to focus upon is ‘personal power‘.

There will be much clearing of both psychic and physical energy fields in the first lunation of 2015 and looking after your health and well-being will be paramount, not least as this is the foundation upon which personal power rests and becomes manifest. Trust that whatever comes up in this clearing process is right and, while allowing nature to do the work, do take note of what is happening – issues arising within this lunation are indicating areas in which personal power needs attention, especially in relation to how it is applied in the world. Finances and knowledge, as well as health, are very much a part of this assessment and you can here include the strength of your connections, the wealth of support you have across the worlds, in this appraisal as well – this will become especially clear around and after full Moon when Venus and Mercury enter Aquarius.

If you do find deficiencies examine why that is so; this is a year in which you can make the necessary corrections in relation to these and it begins through encountering the tangible evidence. Make good use of the diagnostic tools you have at your disposal and, if stuck for answers or clues, compare notes, seek a second opinion, get a reading and, most importantly, commune with nature – the answers will come; often it is ourselves that is preventing them from being seen. Ironically, when personal power is under the spotlight, it is all too often stoic refusal to ask for help or share our dilema that is the stumbling block!

The Jan 5th full Moon in Cancer is opposite the Sun+Pluto square Uranus and the lunar nodes. If you are feeling a strong desire to break out of current circumstances the key to making this happen is not through force of will, but, through higher guidance and learning. Aim to expand your knowledge base. The three days around the January full Moon can be a profound time for making sacred space and allowing the psychic energy of the lunation to clear and cleanse your subtle and energy bodies. This is especially powerful as, at the highest point of intensity, the Moon conjuncts Sirius, the soul star to our own Sun, and the greater perspective of our own higher self and our chief guides in the other-worlds can be called upon to lead the way.  If you make this connection stronger what you perceive in the process holds the key to understanding just what you have been missing out on being and doing, as well as what you might well be have been avoiding accomplishing, as an earth bound soul.

The time between this and the next full Moon can be used to align worldly means with soul’s natural desire in this lifetime. This desire is an expression of a choice already made in coming here, a choice and potential that may have become overlooked or that you have lost touch with on the journey.

Often enough we resist the soul’s desire because it signifies growing beyond our comfort zone, expanding our being, and involves having our personal power fully tested. Habitual responses alone do not cut it here ~ instinct and courage, as well as sharp intellect and discernment are necessary. These will be elements of personal power that will be needed to navigate the whole of the Saturn transit, for which, we can be assured, Saturn will provide plenty of reality checks to test them out. As distinct from the heart’s desires, the Soul’s desire is a magnetic attraction that pulls us, at the most instinctive and natural level, towards that which is outside of the known, that which we most need to grow into ~ personal power finds its raison d’etre in this.

Soul is the wild animal of our being, and, like all things wild, it is deeply connected with and belongs to the realms of Nature. Over the last few years in particular Nature has become the battle ground in which the misuse of power has become fully exposed. Equally, the roots of Nature’s own power is coming more tangibly into consciousness – in other words, as Barbara Hand Clow puts it, “We are becoming more conscious of the unconscious”. The soul’s health is deeply tied in with the healthy balance of power in Nature, a balance based on mutual co-operation and respect rather than exploitation and usury and, collectively, the growing awareness that we are out of balance is making us increasingly sick at heart of this disfunction. What we do for ourselves, in this respect, helps restore this balance and the impetus to be pro-active in this is aided and abetted by these lunations and planetary matrix. Aligning our own life with Nature has become a revolutionary act of healing!

How we can personally satisfy the needs of this aspect of ourselves and the world is further brought into focus during the second lunation of this quarter.

Shortly after the opening of the second lunation Mercury stations retrograde and, six weeks later, the inner-most planet will clear the retrograde shadow zone, just before the full Moon of the third lunation. This retrograde period will be a test to our collective cohesion, the reality check that could see freedoms of speech and connection across the internet challenged. At the heart of the lunation the full Moon is conjunct Jupiter in Leo, at the head of a yod from Mars+Chiron in Pisces sextile Pluto in Capricorn ~ the evolving complexity of the matrix has the Sun at the reaction point of the yod, quintile Saturn, with Saturn squaring Neptune. We will look to this chart in its own reading, but, the whole issue of aims, goals and self-authority is under the spotlight here. The field for this lunation favours adjusting our thinking, allowing strategies to emerge that support the strengthening of intents. These are intents which allow our personal power to become more focused and put in service to the higher ideals necessary to our times and personal paths. This may also bring up tests upon personal patience and collective confidence. Wise leadership again comes under the spotlight, both as a collective and personal question.

The true test of those ideals and the collective direction they represent begins to come out through the third lunation of the quarter as, at its high point, Sun+Chiron oppose the Virgo full Moon. We can heal the rift between our human and animal selves if Nature is listened to.

The yod to Jupiter is again active, this time formed through Sun+Chiron sextile Pluto, with Mercury, now direct and free of the retro-zone, at the reaction point in Aquarius. The emphasis on leadership has by this time swung to a global perspective and where we find persistent autocratic rule at work there will be vociferous backlash. We will almost certainly encounter this ‘reality check’ as a need to stand deeply rooted in our natural personal power and collectively make our voices heard. The mandate will be to ensure that no stone be left unturned in bringing healing and renewal to the world.

In the third lunation we also find Mars conjunct the south lunar node, close on Uranus conjunct Venus at full Moon. Again, this adds up to a complex planetary matrix, but, spiritual growth is promised if the higher guidance of perennial wisdom is acted upon and followed through. As we approach equinox the voices of the ancestors become strong – utilise their guidance in breaking free of the shackles of the past. Globally we could be seeing some old scores and karmic debts settled here, but, it is the grounded and well informed elder’s voice of reason that will carry the initiative.

The third quarter closes with a new Moon in the final degree of Pisces. This will be a total solar eclipse, visible in totality through an arc that begins south of Greenland and sweeps through the northern Atlantic towards the north pole; Europe, north Africa and much of northern and central Asia will see this as a partial eclipse, but, globally, this signals a moment of spiritual crisis that augers significant spiritual emergence. As the Saturn Neptune square closes, and as Uranus and Pluto square off exactly for the seventh and last time, the pressure will be on to tip the balance on initiating meaningful and lasting change where it is most needed in the world.

We’ll close here by returning briefly to Saturn in Sagittarius as the underlying theme emerging here is in many ways encapsulated in this transit.

Saturn has finally left Scorpio and is bringing the reality principle to bear on Jovian qualities. This brings the beliefs, ideals and philosophies we hold most dear under test of Saturn’s grounding influence. Saturn will transit briefly back into Scorpio between mid June and mid September, but, this will serve to tie up lose ends from what has gone before and to clear our emotional bodies for the greater undertaking that lies ahead.

The positive aspect of this transit will kick-in more fully as the year closes and is exemplified in grounding our greater potential and long held dreams in reality. We can make use of the next three years to manifest those dreams, to undertake the things we have always wanted to do, but, somehow have kept on the back-burner, perhaps in spite of ourselves. This will be the time to break out of this pattern. It will entail hard but constructive work, a sustained focus and will require the commitment to keep ourselves and our goals on track. The benefits promised are immense and, apart from changing how we live on our home planet for the better, the collective need in our times, these are fully in line with the impulse and direction of the lunations through this  quarter.

The bottom line is that we are here to break with the destructive patterns of the past and Rick Tarnas puts this into a much larger perspective when he describes the patriarchal epoch as “the 5,000 year birth canal for the Great Mother Goddess”! We can integrate every aspect of our lives into this process and make it as soulfull and deeply meaningful as it suggests and promises. The ructions will continue, such is the need of the process, but, we can now look to these as the contractions that precede the birth. This is about midwifing ‘the way of the Soul’, in tune with and integral within Nature, to become the template for positive and intentional living. In order to evolve beyond the new age idealism this conjures up, Saturn will bring reality checks to bear at every turn of the road, with the frequency needed to become skilled and imbued with enough self-knowledge to live up to the potential of that ideal.

With Uranus becoming free as the year progresses to innovate and inspire, if this becomes manifest as a collective process, which is now the distinct possibility, it can change the face of human life and our footprint upon our home planet. We probably have a five year window at max before we hit crunch time, Saturn conjunct Pluto in Capricorn. The challenge is to take advantage of the positive up-beat and Saturn’s reality checks will provide incentives to become knowing self-leaders, sovereign and empowered in the process. At the same time, the reality principle will apply equally to global leaders and self appointed autocrats who continually abuse their wealth and power. As the opening lunation intimates, re-balancing of worldly power is the core issue.

Uranus and Pluto’s series of squares have fractured the illusions of reality that have maintained the status quo regardless the collective will, and have exposed the rot at the root of the dominant power structures in this world. While they have not brought outright and decisive revolution, they have certainly brought reality enough into the light of day to incite rebellion and this mood is now carried forward through the lens of Saturn and Neptune’s square across Sagittarius and Pisces. The halmark of this aspect is the testing of the relationship between the limitations placed upon realising the full potential of self-authority and the sharing our visionary and spiritual freedoms.

In the mundane, Saturn rules responsibility and hard facts, and Neptune rules imagination and deception; what those in power stand for they will be held accountable to ~ we could see significant financial and political re-centering and power re-distribution begin coming into being across the globe through this year. If this is to be a renewal of democratised power, a sharing of resource as well as vision, it also rests upon the very real ability of each of us to grow, both in wisdom, empowerment and beyond our comfort zones.

The first quarter of 2015 is where the wheels of renewal are set in motion ~ as has been said before, it all begins in the present, under our own two feet, but, now we stand to see the creative power of the individual mobilised collectively, to decisive effect. The question is who will you be following……almost certainly, the answer lies within.

In the coming posts we will take a deeper look into the esoteric side of the Saturn transit through Sagittarius and, subsequently, how the effects of the square between Neptune and Saturn will change how we see the world.