It bears repeating that these images weren’t divined in order but blindly (literally) but a blind seer. Yesterday we trekked toward illumination and today we find that, at Pisces 12°, In The Sanctuary Of An Occult Brotherhood, Newly Initiated Members Are Being Examined And Their Character Tested. The gist of this symbol is hinged on the fact that, just because we move in a direction and seek acceptance by a group, we might not find that acceptance to be automatically on offer. We must prove ourselves capable and worthy. We might claim an inherent divine right to do this (yesterday’s symbol is ruled by Leo which governs that internally fixed fire) but we have to demonstrate certain adeptness, that we have utilized that internal fire and allowed it to purify us of ego and other impediments. Today’s image is ruled by Virgo in a twelve-fold sequence, the mutable-earth sign that follows the fixed-fire of Leo. It is associated with the god of the forge, Hephaestus, who was an alchemist and a, rather ironic, god of humility in service to gods and men. That Leo fire might send us on that trek, but the journey should be humbling and cause a change in us, rendering us something different from how we started out, changing our make up as befits Virgo’s humbling mutable-earth status, changing all that we are wrought of if not our material selves.

Leo is all about our ideal selves, being the best we can be—as a fire sign it points to what that ideal is, in spirit. Then we must physically align ourselves via our Virgo natures, changing our routines and habits—under the rulership of Virgo’s sixth house—which must be put in service to that ideal. That is the true nature of Virgo’s motto “I serve”. Are we serving the divine god-monarch within? Virgo, in all its humility, sees us don the habit of novice or initiate, shearing the lion’s mane of Leo pride and ego, shadow sides of that ideal sense. And whether you get theself to a nunnery or monastery (flash back to dream I had last night where I was told that my lifestyle was indeed quite monkish, which isn’t true at this juncture, but probably in some sense, essentially so), or you simply put yourself in service to a spiritual ideal, you will be offering yourself up to some sort of group, whether organized or not. We can’t always seek, we must find, there must come a point where we find welcome in some collective that reflects our inner callings. And having found our place we must prove ourselves able to, and worthy of, fullfilling the (here comes another Virgo word) function associated with it.

If we are seeking we are perhaps lost. If we are found than we might not longer be free, in the individual sense, but an agent, The Vehicle (name of the Virgo man chapter in Sextrology) or The Vessel (name of the Virgo woman chapter in Sextrology) via which the whole of the good might operate through us. But we must be made of certain qualities to qualify for this; we must be humbled in our exaltation, and have undergone an alchemical change to release our expectations of individual power or recognition. We must be, like Hephaestus, a god of the forge, using our divinity to serve common purposes, not least of which, is the enlightenment of all wo/mankind. We must at all times prove our worth in this.

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.