Image by Shapour Suren-Pahlav
From our Founder & Director, Lydia Violet Farshid Harutoonian
As we head into this next week’s Full Moon in Gemini, I offer these reflections on the archetypal dance in the sky above as a means to liberate potential and communion.
Mars, the planet of willpower, impulse, and physicality, still in its retrograde, is trining Saturn, the planet of discipline, sustenance, and elderhood. As we hear the call of these two planets together, we find the Steadfast Warrior. The Steadfast Warrior in you may be asking, “How can I bring further integrity and stamina to this moment?” And this Wednesday, this Mars-Saturn trine will dance with the Full Moon in Gemini. As the Moon speaks to our bodies, emotional and physical, and me before I consciously know who I am, this transit asks, “Where can I focus my attention towards self-respect and perseverance to support the emotional well-being of my life? How can I take a long-term view, integrating the wisdom of an elder’s attention, looking back with reverence on the cycles of life? How can my own dignity, and protecting the dignity of others, sharpen my compass?”
On its shadow side, this transit could be bringing out a sense of defeatedness, the places where your attempts to move forward feel like they are hitting a wall. Saturn can present a rigid boundary, an area where you are being asked not to go for some reason. At least for now. As your compass redirects, or simply stands still, your body reminds you to visit the disciplines of the past that cultivated resilience. Is there a practice, a simple repetition, a mantra, a meditation, a touchstone you can rest into as your momentum redirects?
I think here of the Mesopotamian/Greek myth of the Amazons, a tribe of warrior horsewomen who remained steadfast in their commitment to their own freedom. As the story goes, many thousands of years ago, a group of Greek raiders ventured into what is now northern Turkey. Traveling across the steppe, they came across a group of horsewomen, and it’s important to note here that in some archaeological digs in Eurasia, as many as thirty-seven percent of the graves contain the bones and weapons of horsewomen who fought alongside men. Every myth seems to have some literal truth at its roots.
At a time when the majority of women in these areas were subject to household enslavement enshrined in law, there was a mythic vision of women with the sturdiness of horses beneath them. Forming and following their own compass. They were unable to be tricked by the men they came across, their own cunning winning out at the end of the day. Their minds and bodies were their own. They lived within their own autonomy, challenged as they were at every encounter. The endurance of women to hold onto their own self-respect and autonomy is still a central evolutionary fight in our own time. May this next Full Moon bring with it a fertile training ground for the Steadfast Warrior of the Moon.
As they are chanting today in the streets of Iran, my own ancestral lands, “Zan. Zendegi. Azadi.” Women. Life. Freedom.
M Y T H + A S T R O L O G Y4 FULL MOONS |
Lydia Violet and Verana Faye will host this archetypal women’s group, where each session we will deepen our understanding of the astrology of the moment, including the aspects to the Moon and archetypal themes they bring with them. Lydia will unpack one myth per session that correlates, archetypally, with the themes present in the sky to help guide our session. This container is for all who identify as women. We will also be serving herbal elixirs that correlate to the astrology of the moment! Connecting the stars above us to the herbal earth below, as inspired by the Herbal Astrology divining of Lydia’s comrade Adriana Ayales. Archetypal worldviews are not meant to lock us into stereotypes but liberate our potential. They help us see avenues of collaboration with the Gods and our lives, creating options and the empowerment to choose. By learning more of the patterns present in the heavens, we can find ourselves reflected in our inner movements, desires, and choices. As women, this power to choose is a political act that comes with both belonging and responsibility. This circle is a meditation on these things, empowered by myth, astrology, and communion. Come feed the story pot in a circle of women, honoring the moon and each other. |
