The constellation Virgo actually begins in the cusp between Leo and Virgo and extends into Libra.

The sky at this moment reminds me that at every moment we’re in a Mystery play. In every moment, we’re not just witnessing the ever-shifting, multi-dimensional play of the Great Mystery — we’re taking part in it.  It’s unfolding through us.

In the Eastern time zone on the East Coast of the U.S., dusk is falling. The long autumn light is sliding out of a soft pink sky.  I can’t see the great stars who are aligning with half the planets in the solar system.  Knowing that their energies are streaming over the Earth is enough, though.  More than enough, in fact, to begin to sense the invisible potent presence of the Cosmos all around me and deep within me.   Sometimes we see more clearly without the sight of our outer eyes to trick us.

Our Star is in the same degree as a black hole, far beyond our solar system in 1 degree of Libra.  Though the Sun has sunk beneath the western horizon, it’s bathing our home planet nonetheless, with the most potent energy in the Universe streaming into its rays.

Luna is in 25 Taurus, a degree of the sky where the much-feared star Algol resides.  Algol’s lore links it to Medusa, once the most beautiful woman on earth, seduced by Poseidon in the Acropolis. It was the famous temple to Athena, the most powerful goddess of classical Athens.

Medusa is one of the best examples of the dark and complex turn the Feminine took once she became subordinate.  Athena turned her into a monster so fearsome that to look at her would turn a man to stone.  Burning at the end of Taurus, one of the ancient Earth Goddess’ sacred signs, Algol reminds us of all the layers of false consciousness to be shed in order to claim the deep, authentic power of the Feminine  once again.  May we use the powerful energies of Now to release all that does not empower us.

Mercury the Cosmic Messenger, is at 22 Libra, making his way to  Spica, the fabled star in the hand of the Virgin. Or, as Nick Anthony Fiorenza suggests in a wonderful essay, “The Astronomical Truth of the Virgin,”  perhaps that’s not the Virgin’s hand after all that Spica is illuminating.  Perhaps it’s her root chakra.  We know that to the ancient mind — far more tuned to the energetic potency of the Cosmos than it’s possible to be in our electrified, wired, radio-waved world — the virginal state of Virgo did not necessarily imply sexual chastity. Fiorenza’s definition is far more spiritually resonant:  “a pure vessel, true to her soul intent.”

Fiorenza believes that the Cosmic Virgin herself has a lover — Constellation Bootes, the Cosmic Protector and “true soul compliment [sic]” to the Virgin.  And Spica, he continues, represents the Virgin’s genitals, with which she and her twin flame mate eternally in the sky — above us, and within us.

Listen to Mercury tonight and see what secrets he may have to tell about the sky within us and around us.  About our the pure intent of our own virginal souls and our true soul complements.  About the energetic oppression of the Cosmic Feminine within us. About our ability to be radically transformed, into purer vessels of the Great Mystery, unfolding within us at every moment.