Virgo Dark Moon And Balance

Speaker 0:06

Hello, friends, and welcome to episode thirteen of Darkness and Light. I'm your host, Wendy Rule, and this is a podcast about myth, Magic, and nature. So this episode lands right on the Virgo Dark Moon. Last episode we were right on the Pisces full moon. So two weeks later, our Lady Moon has moved through her waning cycle from the peak of light of the Full Moon and now into the depths of darkness on the Dark Moon. And that's really what this podcast is all about witnessing that balance between darkness and light that is so much a part of nature. This is also the last episode before the equinox. At the moment of the equinox, the sun will move out of the sign of Virgo and into Libra, but we are deep in Virgo season now. And so that last episode, the Pisces Full Moon episode, we explored the gifts of mutable water. And now, in this opposite sign of Virgo, we're celebrating the energy of Mutable Earth and using those gifts of Virgo, of deep attention, of precision, and of ritual to prepare us and bring us into balance as we move toward the equinox. And while that Pisces gift of Mutable Water opens us to the mystery of life, it's the Virgo gift of Mutable Earth that helps us to interpret that mystery and to integrate it. And in this episode, as we explore the many beautiful gifts of Virgo, we are going to meet the goddess Hestia. She'll be our guide as we dive into Virgo's gifts.

Mutable Earth And Virgo Gifts

Speaker 2:29

As an Earth sign, Virgo helps us to connect with the physical world, and its expression of earth is Mutable Earth, earth that changes, earth that moves. The other Earth signs we have Cardinal Earth, Capricorn, that creates foundation and strength, and then Fixed Earth of Taurus that reminds us of the beauty and lusciousness of the physical world. But Virgo's Mutable Earth is all about change. When we consider earth, we might first of all think of rocks and mountains and things that are removable. But earth is also plant life. It is growth and decay. Earth is always changing. Our bodies are changing. Mutable Earth, earth in motion. That might be a plant sending up a rapidly growing shoot, a tree dropping its leaves in autumn, or it might be our bodies in movement of dance or yoga, or even martial arts that bring both movement and the gifts of precision, those Virgo gifts. This Mutable Earth is adaptable, it's responsive, and it's also practical. I believe that Virgo is one of the most misunderstood signs. Its gifts are so subtle that they can easily be overlooked. These are gifts of focus and precision, of striving toward excellence, the gifts of refinement and improvement, of detail and pattern and skill, the gifts of craft making. And often these gifts have been associated with the creating of a home, keeping everything in order, creating a garden, weaving and sewing, arranging everything just so. I feel that there's been a return to the appreciation of some of these Virgo gifts lately. A return to interest in handcraft, in knitting and crochet and embroidery and pottery and bread making. Maybe that's a response to the fast digital culture, this culture of distraction, that these Virgo gifts are being re-embraced in our need for focus and patience and grounding. And this love of order that comes with Virgo has often been misread as compulsive perfectionism, but really it's about bringing things into order and recognizing the sacred in the everyday. It's interesting that as I am recording this episode, about earth, and change, there's a storm brewing in the background. I can hear thunder rolling. I'm not sure if the mic is picking this up. But it has been such a dry summer here in New Mexico, and every day we are hoping for rain. So as I hear the rumble of the thunder,  I'm really hoping, when I step out from my little studio, that I smell the beautiful rain, as it wakes up  the scent of the desert. 

Mercury - Ruling Planet of Virgo

Speaker 6:54

Virgo is ruled by the planet Mercury. And that rulership is a big part of why Virgo is such a mentally active and discerning and observant sign. Mercury rules both Gemini and Virgo, so Mutable Air and Mutable Earth, both signs of change. Those mercurial gifts, a quick mind, language abilities, naming and categorizing, precision with words, editing and observation. We explored those mercurial gifts in the episode on Hermes during Gemini season, but while that Gemini energy of that quick mind, that trickster energy, that's that Gemini interpretation of the gifts of Mercury. But Virgo grounds those mercurial gifts in Earth and applies that quick intelligence to the tangible and practical world. Gemini notices information and Virgo sorts it and puts it in order. What belongs here and what doesn't, what's useful, what needs changing. Virgo transforms chaos into order by noting the pattern of things. It takes note of what's out of place. I have a lot of Virgo in my chart. We all can connect with this energy, no matter whether we have planets in Virgo in our chart or not. We can tap into every single sign because we're all born under the sky that has all twelve signs. But for some of us, some signs might be more activated than others. And for me, I have some generational planets in Virgo. Pluto and Uranus were hanging out in Virgo when I was born. I also have Mars in Virgo, and I have all my three Scorpio planets in the sixth house, which is the area of our birth charts that's associated with the sign of Virgo. So that Virgo energy of wanting to put things in order. I've always loved that, whether it's gathering sticks and leaves in the forest and making some kind of mandala or finishing a sudoku, putting all those numbers in order, or even cleaning up after a party. I get some kind of joy out of getting up first and putting things back into order, sorting and organizing. I love that kind of thing. It's really about noticing detail, that mercurial gift of Virgo, to notice. And I've spoken before about noticing, paying attention being an act of ritual in itself. Simply taking the time to stop and notice and look at the detail, whether that's in nature or in a work of art, this gift of noticing, of paying attention, it means that things that are out of place or different stand out. And when that's expressed, that can be misinterpreted as some kind of obsessive perfectionism, but it's really just noticing. I have a skill that I can easily find four-leaf clovers. I've been able to do this since I was a kid. And, you know, I love this because of that fairy tale association of four-leaf clovers with magic. But really, it's a cultivated skill. I can look at a patch of clover, and the one that's different just stands out. It may as well be red in a patch of green. It just looks obviously different to me. So this act of seeming Magic or even of luck isn't at all. It's simply noticing, it's paying attention. That's kind of a lovely reminder that we can cultivate magic in our lives, synchronicities, alignments by paying attention, by recognizing, and then we can bring that attention of noticing to our craft, and then the craft becomes an act of ritual, making something beautiful, aiming toward perfection, applying patience and focus and skill as an act of reverence.

Hestia And The Sacred Hearth

Speaker 12:09

Although the planet Mercury and the god Mercury or Hermes, the Greek equivalent, align very beautifully with the qualities of Virgo, there's actually a goddess who I feel might be an even more perfect fit for those Virgoan gifts, and that is the Greek goddess Hestia, the goddess of the hearth. And the hearth represents the center, a point of stillness. In ancient Greece, the hearth was the center of the home, so everything radiated out from this. It was a point of focus, like the center of a mandala. And the name Hestia, who is 'estia' in Greek, literally means hearth. The hearth is the Hestia, and Hestia is the hearth. And so I'm sure you can see why I connect Virgo and Hestia so strongly. Those gifts of hearth and home, of keeping a home or a community or a society in order is what Virgo is all about, quietly going about the business of maintaining body and soul.

Hestia and the Virgin Goddesses

Speaker 13:41

In mythology, Hestia is the sister of Zeus and Poseidon and Hades, and Demeter and Hera, the six original Olympic gods. Their parents are Cronos and Rhea, but because Kronos was given a prophecy that one of his children would overtake him, when each of his children were born, he then swallowed them. And Hestia was the firstborn, so she was also the first swallowed. But when the final child was born, that was Zeus, his mother, Rhea, tricked Kronos, she hid the baby away and wrapped a large stone in swaddling clothes, and Kronos swallowed the stone instead. And when Zeus was secretly raised to adulthood, he then challenged his father, as the prophecy foretold, and Kronos was forced to regurgitate his children. So Hestia was firstborn and first swallowed, but she was the final child to be regurgitated, so she was both the first and the last. And in ritual in ancient Greece, it was a tradition that Hestia would always get the first offering as the firstborn, and in some traditions she'd also get the final offering as the first and the last. And there's kind of a sense of order to that as well, of balance, of completion, the first and the last, this precision again. Hestia is one of the three great Virgin Goddesses in Greek mythology. There's Artemis, who we've explored in a previous episode, and her virgin qualities, and remember that this isn't about sexuality, this is more about autonomy. Artemis expresses that as that wild nature. And then there's Athena, and she expresses that virgin quality as the clear, clever mind. And then there's Hestia, and her virgin aspect is about being contained within herself. Both Poseidon and Apollo sought to marry Hestia, but Hestia refused and swore to remain a virgin, to remain unmarried essentially. And all those virgin goddesses, that's what distinguishes them, is that they are unmarried. Artemis, Athena, Hestia, they maintained their autonomy by remaining unmarried. So, yeah, both Poseidon and Apollo sought her hand, but Hestia swore to remain a virgin, and Zeus honored that, and in return gave her a place of honor within every household, which of course is the hearth, a share of sacrifices and reverence among mortals.

Home As Center Economy As Order

Speaker 17:30

As the physical presense of the hearthnin the home, Hestia brings focus. Her name is associated with the word for focus. In modern Greek, estiazo means I focus. So as this point of focus, Hestia became the center of the Greek household, which is known as the oikos, which means household, the general household, not just one house, but all the workings of a home. The oikos is where we get the word economy. And economy is again ordering and managing the material world. It comes from this word, oikos, which is the family unit, the home. So the hearth in the home, this point of focus, it brings stability, it's warmth, cooking and light, it's a gathering place. Was also used as a sacrificial fire for making offerings. Symbolically, this hearth energy brings belonging and stability and nourishment, a sense of hospitality and sanctuary, reminding us that the domestic space is sacred. It is center. Hestia was part of everyday domestic religion, and she can be now. I have a little Hestia statue right here on my altar as I'm recording, and she lives in my kitchen. I see her every day, and she reminds me that this simple act, chop would carry water, cooking and cleaning, that they're sacred. So yeah, she was part of everyday domestic religion and not simply special festivals. Food offerings and libations at the hearth were made daily. Cooking and eating connected the ordinary life with the sacred life. And I feel that gift of Mutable Earth with the hearth as well. That we have matter like firewood that seems to be static and still. Then the hearth transforms that and releases its energy. It brings change. So Virgo as Mutable Earth helps us in a similar way consciously transform matter. Through gardening and cooking and craft, through making a mandala, through moving our bodies ritualistically, beautifully, with order and repetition and precision. Virgo takes the raw material and with attention and work transforms and refines it.

The Roman Goddess Vesta

Speaker 20:45

Hestia wasn't only the goddess of the hearth of the individual home, she was also the hearth of the community. Greek cities had a communal sacred hearth in a building called a Pritanion. And the Pritanion was an important civic building or a public hall, and it contained within it the community's sacred hearth. So it represented the heart and continuity of the polis, the city, in the same way that the hearth in the home represented the continuity and focus of the family. So when a new Greek colony was made, they would take some of the burning coals or embers from this sacred hearth from the mother city and establish a hearth in the new city, creating this connection. And so Hestia's flame is the living connection between the old and the new. The Roman counterpart of Hestia is the goddess Vesta, very similar to Hestia, but Rome magnified that same fundamental hearth principle into a major institution at the center of the state. So where Hestia for the Greeks still retained a sense of this privacy, of this focus on the individual home, even though there was that connection with the city half. To the Romans, this cult of Vesta became huge. There were always six Vestal virgins who tended Vesta's sacred flame in this main sacred temple, this hearth. And Vesta herself was represented as the flame. The flame itself was Vesta. And so that flame represented the continuity and well-being of Rome. These priestesses of Vesta, who came to be known as the Vestal Virgins, would be chosen as children around the age of six or ten, and then they would serve for thirty years. And in that time they could never marry, they had to remain celibate, they were held in a place of extraordinary honor and privilege, but there were strict obligations and awful penalties if they broke their obligations of maintaining and tending that flame, and also maintaining their celibacy. So this incredible sense of dedication, commitment, and paying attention.

The Vesta Asteroid in Your Birth Chart

Speaker 23:33

In astrology, there's an asteroid, one of the objects in between Mars and Jupiter, that is named after Vesta. And her symbol's actually really beautiful. It's like the letter V with a little squiggle coming out of it representing the flame. So it's like the half and the flame. And you can see this connection with the flame, like that Olympic torch, this sacred flame that connects, that can pass from one thing to another, but that never goes out. So Vesta, the asteroid, is one of the largest bodies in the asteroid belt. It was discovered in 1807 and then named after the Roman goddess Vesta. And wherever Vesta is in our birth charts, and you can find that out pretty easily. You can just do a search for find Vesta asteroid in my birth chart. And I tested this this morning, actually. Put in that search, put in my birthplace and time, and discovered where this asteroid was at the moment of my birth. And wherever that turns up in our chart, the sign that it's in, the house that it's in, the other planets that it's in relationship with, it gives us a clue as to where our focus and dedication and devotion can best be honored in our lives, where we concentrate our energy and tend to something that matters to us consistently over time. It's connected with the gifts of ritual, of service, of vocation, where everyday work can become an act of devotion. So the sign that the asteroid is in shows how we tend the flame, how we go about that, and its house shows where that devotion is expressed. So yeah, it's interesting to have a look at that. The essential question with Vesta: how do I tend my sacred flame? That's the energy of Hestia. And I think for the Vesta, the difference of that Roman aspect of the goddess, it's much more a public statement of that. Hestia I find so private, kind of reassuring in that too. There's nothing to prove. We just go about our business. It's not about proving ourselves to anyone. It's just doing what matters and bringing attention and love and dedication and focus to that.

The Art of Ritual

Speaker 26:48

The sign of Virgo is the sign of the ritualist. Humans have been creating ritual since the dawn of time. Ritual gives form to intention. It takes something internal and gives it physical expression. It helps us to mark change, beginnings and endings, transitions, loss, celebration, the turning of time. It puts us in relationship with the world around us. Ritual creates a container for experience, a deliberate space where we step outside of ordinary life and pay attention. And in doing so, ritual changes us. That's the purpose of ritual. It's not about learning, it's about deep experience and transformation. So that mutable earth quality of Virgo invites us to bring ritual into our lives. It helps us to map out our ritual practice through observing the turn of the seasons, the cycles of the Moon, the patterns and flow in our own lives. Virgo helps us to be in relationship with time, in a healthy relationship with time. Things take as long as they take. There's an unhurried quality to Virgo. When Virgo honors that hestier gift of center, there's an unhurried quality to its energy. Just as nature takes its time that we can't hurry the sunrise or convince the moon to be full before her time. Virgo is in alignment with this. Things take as long as they take. Mutable Earth is earth in relationship with time. Time is change. Mutable Earth is change in the physical world.

A Simple Ritual For Overwhelm

Speaker 29:21

We can harness these beautiufl gifts of Virgo by committing to a ritual practice. And our rituals don't need to be complex in order to be powerful. The other day, I was going through a hard time - last week - and everything just felt a bit overwhelming, and I was getting up really early to work hard in this preparation for my Australian tour and make sure that I had, you know, these podcast episodes ready. I was just feeling pretty overwhelmed. And it seemed like no matter how hard I worked, it just seemed like more and more and more work just kept materializing, more demands. And I could feel myself starting to freak out. And so, you know what? I actually just dropped everything. I just went, okay, this isn't good. There's no point in me falling in a heap of exhaustion. I'm going to change the way that I'm thinking about this workload. And I stopped everything. First of all, I just went outside, connected with nature, and then I came back to my altar and I just simply burnt some sage and I just told myself to sit there and do absolutely nothing for half an hour, to gaze into a candle flame, to regain my focus and my purpose. I lit some sage and did a little cleansing, cleared my mind, got rid of that stagnant energy that was that was too fixed, that was creating stories for myself that weren't actually helpful. And I just sat there for a while at my altars in front of a window as I was looking out on the beautiful nature outside the window. I pulled some tarot cards and I just sat. It was so simple, breathed, focused, meditated in the best way that I can, which is often, again, just to notice, just to look, settled myself through that simple ritual. Half an hour, that's all it took. Probably not even that, actually. And you know what? Coming out of that, I felt like a different person. All that anxiety had slipped away. I reminded myself that I've been creating a lot of it in my head and that everything was actually doable. And that simple ritual set me back on track. It reminded me that I'm the one who is responsible for and in control of the way that my mind is interpreting my world, and that I'm able to change the way that I interpret that. So yeah, you know, simple tiny little ritual like that made a massive difference. And yeah, it doesn't have to be big, huge communal rituals to make a difference. These quite humble little rituals to me are very hestia, bringing magic into the everyday. And that gift of hestia of Virgo reminds us that these small acts, these repeated gestures bring meaning into our lives, remind us of the sacredness in the ordinary. All of our daily chores can become acts of devotion, of magic simply by changing the way our thoughts work, how we interpret those chores, how we can bring essentially mindfulness or flow state into our everyday world. The behavior itself might be the same thing. I'm sweeping the floor, I'm doing the dishes, I'm replying to emails, I'm getting my taxes done, I'm planting a garden, I'm looking after my kids, I'm driving to work. All those actions are the same. But when we say actually this is part of the ritual of life, this is sacred, then those simple daily tasks become acts of devotion. We're tending to our lives and the lives of those around us. So we can bring a sense of ritual to our daily chores. But I think it's also important to set aside time that is uniquely for ritual, whatever that might be for you. For me, it's honoring the Full Moon and the dark moon and the eight sacred Sabbats in the turning of the year. Every single one of those moments, I'm going to put some dedicated energy toward. I'm going to carve out time, and it doesn't need to be complex. A Dark Moon or a Full Moon, it might be as simple as lighting a candle and gazing at it for a few minutes or pulling a tarot card. It could be as simple as that, but it's always an acknowledgement. And that keeps this rhythm. Because I think Virgo is really associated with rhythm too, earth in motion. It keeps the rhythm of my life in order. And by committing to a regular ritual practice, we bring ourselves into alignment with the flow of nature.

Hildegard And The Greening Power

Speaker 35:28

There is an historical figure, who I find just so incrediboy fascinating, and her name is Hildegard Von Bingen. And I think she is an extraordinary embodiment of Virgo archetypal energy. We don't know her birth date, only that she was born in 1098 in what is now Germany. So I don't know if she's a Virgo, maybe, but she definitely embodies those Virgo qualities. So yeah, she was born in 1098, so medieval, and entered a Benedictine religious community as a child, and she eventually became an abbess, a leader, establishing and leading her own religious community of women. She lived until she was around eighty one, and she became an extraordinarily productive and influential religious figure. She was a writer, a mystic, a musical composer, a healer, a preacher, and an administrator. She's really quite incredible. As a child, Hildegard experienced mystical visions and described a divine luminosity that she called the living light. And then in her forties, she began recording these visions, and they were cosmic images of stars and fire, of nature, of humanity, and of God, of the divine. And her visionary writings eventually received church approval, which is fortunate because you can see she's kind of walking that fine line of Witchcraft, really. So, very cleverly, not surprisingly, she said these were visions from God, and they were approved by the church. Hildegard truly was a genius. She was an extraordinary composer and poet, and there are around 70 compositions that survive, and they're known for this soaring, ecstatic quality. She composed it for the women in her religious community, so it's sung by women in Latin, and they are these soaring melodies, monophonic, so everyone's more or less singing the same melody. Absolutely, extraordinarily beautiful. I'll play a little at the end of this segment, but I really encourage you to take a listen, a longer listen, and immerse yourself in Hildegard's music, and you can find it. There are modern recordings, so you'll find it in all the normal places. Absolutely, utterly, astonishingly beautiful. So she wrote music brilliantly, and she was also an expert herbalist. She wrote extensively about plants and herbs and food and the body and illness and healing. And she saw the body and the soul and nature and the divine as interconnected, as all expressions of this one divine, all expressions of God, I guess, in her terms, from that era. And she has this beautiful concept called Viriditas. Viriditas, the greening power, the living, fertile, divine energy flowing through plants. I'm hearing a connection with Viridian green, a beautiful color that really represents plant growth, Viridian green, the greening power. So beautiful. And yeah, she was an incredible intellect. She's a true polymath. Theology, mysticism, music, poetry, medicine, natural history, cosmology. And she corresponded with and was an advisor to popes and bishops and nobles and rulers, emperors, and she wasn't afraid to challenge them either. And this is a woman born in 1098. Just incredible. And she even created her own vocabulary, her own language, which she called lingua ignota, unknown language, and she had several hundred invented words. Just incredible. So very mercurial in that Virgo sense. And you can see that quick and clever mind of Virgo applied to the living world, observing and organizing and communicating and connecting different fields of knowledge. So she's been revered as a saint for centuries, but it wasn't until 2012, can you believe that? 2012, that she was formally recognized throughout the Catholic Church. And then later that year, she was named a doctor of the church, only the fourth woman to receive the title. No great surprise there. So yeah, why I am wanting to share the incredible talents of Hildegard von Bingen with you for this special Virgo Dark Moon episode is that she so embodies those Virgo qualities of being in service, of healing and earth and craft and discipline and scholarship, language and attention to detail. She led a life of sustained, sacred work. And then we feel that connection with that opposite sign, that Pisces energy, of the mystic, of the visionary. The two are connected, the mystical expressed through the everyday.

Stone Soup

Speaker 42:03

I have a ritual suggestion for this Virgo Dark Moon. This is something I've done many times, and I find it just so enjoyable. Do you know that story of stone soup? Where a traveler arrives at the edge of a village and he sets up a cooking pot and puts it over a fire, boiling water, and he places a stone in it. And eventually a villager comes by and goes, Hey stranger, what are you making? And the stranger says, Oh, I'm making stone soup. Wow, you can make stone soup. You can make soup out of a stone. Oh yeah, it's absolutely delicious. You're welcome to share some. Of course, it's much better with an onion. Oh, I've got an onion. I'll run back home and get it and bring it back. That'd be great. So now the stone soup has an onion. Next villager comes along. Oh, what are you making? I'm making stone soup. You can just make soup just from a stone and water. Oh wow. Oh, I'd love to try it. Oh yeah, you're welcome to try it. Of course, it's better with celery. Oh, I've got some celery, I'll run back home and get some. And the next person, and it's better with carrots, and it's better with potatoes, etc., etc., etc. So it's a great story. It's a great story of community and resourcefulness, both very strong Virgo qualities. So this ritual that I like to do, I get a stone, and I actually have a stone that I have kept now for, wow, close on 40 years. It's a river rock from up in the Snowy Mountains in Australia, actually. And I kept this perfectly round black river rock. I've kept it all these years, and I always use this for stone soup. So what I like to do is I get that stone, any stone, clean stone. You want to scrub this because it's going to go in your pot. You put this stone in the center, make a space on your table or your kitchen bench or whatever, and then I make a mandala with a stone at the center, and I use only edible things, you know, a fine row of red lentils, and then outside of that, maybe some brown lentils, maybe a row of radiating out pinto beans, and then a circle of sliced carrot or chopped celery or whatever else you might think might be delicious in your stone soup. And I'll spend ages usually listening to Hildegard von Bingen making this mandala. And I love the temporary nature of mandalas in general in this way, kind of like the sand mandalas in the Tibetan traditions. That they exist and then they're gone. Mutable earth. So we make this mandala out of all the edible things that are lovely, maybe some bay leaves radiating out from the stone. Make this beautiful mandala, experience it, enjoy the process, gather it all up, put it in the pot, boil it up, stone soup, magic soup, magic, virgo, dark moon soup. So there's my suggestion. I find that really a lovely Virgo ritual, Dark Moon or Full Moon. Both lovely, but I think even more so for Dark Moon.

Virgo Dark Moon Meditation

Speaker 45:28

And now, before we pull a tarot card for this episode, let's do a little Dark Moon meditation, just a short one, to connect in with our deep selves and with our Lady Moon, to gently turn inward and tune in to our center. Let's begin with the right here and the right now. Feeling the weight of your body, the pull of gravity as Earth draws you down. Whether you're standing or sitting or lying down, feel this pull of earth drawing you toward her center, and witnessing your breath, the rhythm of inhalation and exhalation, of rising and falling. And without trying to change anything, just allow your breath to soften and slow, to go deep with this dark mode. Where sun and moon connect in the sign of Virgo, calling us inward, calling us to center, to focus. And if you are listening to this, after this time of the dark moon, that's absolutely fine. You can still tune into this moment. This point of center and stillness, of slowing down, of gifting ourselves time for ritual. And take your imagination now to a sacred hearth where there is a small and steady flame. And sit yourself down beside that hearth. Take note of where this hearth is. Inside, outside. Trust in the visions that come to you. Maybe these are clues to how you can find your own center. How you can find the Magic in the mundane. Breathing into this place. Gazing into that flame in your mind's eye. And as you sit by this hearth, become aware of the earth beneath you and send your awareness down into Mother Earth. All the way down to Earth's center. Feeling that line of connection, that pull of gravity down to Earth's center, and draw that energy up all the way to your heart chakra, in the center of your chest. And then take your awareness to the above. Letting your imagination guide you up and out. Beyond the space where your heart is centered into the infinite Cosmos above. And draw that energy down to your heart. And now imagining the direction of North. And then South, East and Eest until you are aware that you are the center of your own compass. With energy radiating out in every direction. And focus now on where these directions meet. Above, below, north, south, east, west, center within. From this point of center, gaze into the flame of your heart of Hestia, ancient goddess, and connect with her wisdom. Feel her flame within you. And on this Virgo dark moon, take note of what you know it is time to let fall away. What is it time to release on this dark moon? What is it time to release? To let go of what no longer serves you. To see the patterns and order in your life and know what is out of place. And to simply let that go into the flame. To release it as a sacrifice, to let the unnecessary fall away. And return to what is simple and useful. And nourishing and true. And feel the energy of this sacred flame within you. Take the gift of this hearth within you now. And know that it is fully integrated within you, Hestia. The hearth. The focus. And coming back into the right here. Right now, into your body. When you're ready, open your eyes. Alright, let's pull a tarot card.

Tarot Time

Speaker 51:53

See what this beautiful Hestia energy of Virgo would like us to remember right now. Would like us to pay attention to. It's the World card. That's interesting. We pulled this two episodes ago in the episode about the Odyssey. So it's interesting it turns up again so soon. Okay, the world card. The image is of a nearly naked woman draped in a flowing cloth, and she's standing on one foot, lightly dancing, holding a wand in each hand. She is within an oval wreath, looks like a victory wreath. And in each corner is a representation of each of the four fixed signs of the zodiac: Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius. But really, I think in this instance, they're representing the everything, the world, all the complexity of Earth, Air, Fire, Water, all that external influence as well. Each of I'm just noticing this now, too, because you always notice different things in different contexts. Each of these creatures is kind of surrounded by a cloud. And what's interesting is that that cloud doesn't encroach upon the inside of the wreath, even with all this activity going on. The dancer, and remember, I've mentioned that connection with mutable earth, with dancing, with moving our bodies, that all this action is happening outside of this sacred circle, this wreath. But within it, the dance continues. This movement and this union of both centeredness and yet movement. I'm gazing at the image and I'm using the Pamela Coleman-Smith Rider Waite deck, very standard tarot deck. I'm gazing at this world dancer, and it seems like nothing would distract her from this dance right now. She's going about her business, lightly dancing, undistracted by what is happening around her, in this constant state of movement and yet centered. There's a stillness to this movement. Traditionally, the world card talks of completion. It's the final card in the major arcana. It talks of completion, of endings, but endings that call for celebration, for having completed one stage, being ready to move on to the next. But I think the image that I'm seeing in this context right now is this sense of being unperturbed by the world around us, by maintaining our center, no matter what is happening in the world. And it's not by being still, it's not by being anchored and by being fixed, it's through constant movement, through the sacred dance of existence. How interesting to pull that so soon after the last time. And interesting too that, yeah, as I've explained many a time, although of course I acknowledge the traditional meanings of each card, I also like to see what comes up in the moment, what I notice, and the different contexts that can bring up different meanings for a card. So, yeah, that's my take on the world in this instance. Of course, I will be talking more deeply about this card during my Magic Monday video on my Patreon.

Patreon Invite And Closing Blessing

Speaker 56:15

So if you would like to tune into that and if you'd like to contribute your wisdom as well, we always have a nice exchange in the comment section after each of the videos where we can share our wisdom and our insights about the card and anything else that's happening in our world. So if you would like to be part of that, head over to my Patreon, patreon.com/ wendy rule. You can join up for about the cost of a cup of coffee each month. I'd love to share that realm with you. But mostly, right now, I want to wish you a very sacred, beautiful, Dark Moon. And if you're listening to this at any other time, a reminder to tune in to the sacred of the everyday. Blessed Be.