El Rio de Luz (The River of Light, 1887), by Frederic Edwin Church. Photo courtesy of WikiCommons.
El Rio de Luz (The River of Light, 1887), by Frederic Edwin Church. Photo courtesy of WikiCommons.

Are you tuning in at this Medusa-flavored new moon to receive Wisdom from the depths?

For those with a two-second attention span, at this new moon you’re invited to call Wisdom and heartfulness ‘down to Earth’ to illuminate and guide your way.

For those who still retain some powers of focus and concentration, and who want to delve more deeply and really explore and embody the gifts of this new moon cycle — who are called to help midwife the re-emerging Feminine — read on.

As I write this post, we’re in the potent dark of the moon phase, or the few days just prior to the New Moon which will be ‘exact’ at 12:13 a.m. EDT on May 18th.

And I have to say, this post has been gestating for a bit and also sprouting into different directions, like Medusa‘s wild, snaky hair — and since this new moon has something to do with Medusa, there’s a link there.

Pulling this one together required some story wrangling, guided by Medusa herself.

Let me ‘splain. Walk with me as I weave together a few threads on the theme that’s afoot.

This new moon is in Taurus, an earth-element sign ruled by Venus — a Feminine element, and a Feminine archetype.

Thomas-Cole_the-course-of-empire-desolation-1836
The Empire of Desolation, 1836, by Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School. Public domain image courtesy of WikiMedia.

For astro geeks, it occurs at 26:56 degrees Taurus, so you can find that in your chart and see just what story it tells you and what clues or wee little guiding lights it gives you.*

(For me, it’s spot-on my Ascendant — which means it’s rising — so I’m paying attention.)

The new moon, then, is conjunct (in the same degree as) the fixed star Algol, at Medusa’s ‘third eye’ (between her brows) in the constellation Perseus.

So we’ve got a new cycle that’s very much tied in with the energy, archetype, and story of Medusa.

And what a story Medusa has — and it’s also one that tells the story of what we now call Western culture, a culture in which many reading this will have been ‘pickled’ from birth, and a culture that’s in the throes of radical transformation because it has become not just unsustainable, but deadly toxic and unwell.

So on a personal level, and on a cultural or collective level, we look to Wisdom to:

– show us the gifts of the prevailing culture that can be retained;
– reveal the shadows of the prevailing culture that have become toxic enough to be deadly and must be released or transformed; and
– illuminate the Wisdom and gifts of deep history — our ancestral and our soul inheritance or lineage — that was ‘killed’ by the dominant culture and must be reclaimed to restore wellness, wellbeing, and balance.
Hubble Space Telescope image of galaxy NGC 1275. Public domain image from NASA, Hubble, etc.
Hubble Space Telescope image of galaxy NGC 1275 or Perseus A. Public domain image from NASA, Hubble, etc.

No pressure. Really. We’re eyeball deep in it already; it’s ongoing, and it may well be the Great Work of our time.

But in order to see where we are and where we’re going and what gifts and guidance we might have at our disposal, we have to visit a story from the past.

So back to Medusa and the Wisdom and opportunity in this new moon …

In mythic, archetypal, and energetic-psychic terms, this new moon and unfolding cycle is activated by the bright fixed star Algol, at Medusa’s Third Eye (in the constellation of stars named Perseus).

Algol really freaked out the Cranky Paters of the middle ages, and maybe before that, too. Why? Because it seemed to wink at them … now you see it, now you don’t.

So in their agitated state of freaked-outedness at the whole winking thing, they designated Algol as the most evil star in the heavens … a Demon star. It was a seriously bad omen.

Perseus with Medusa's Head, bronze sculpture by Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), Florence. GNU-free/Creative Commons mage courtesy of Morio via WikiMedia.
Perseus with Medusa’s Head, bronze sculpture by Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), Florence. GNU-free/Creative Commons mage courtesy of Morio via WikiMedia.

And it was associated with Medusa’s head, which freaked them out even more.

But they were mistaken, because they didn’t have the ‘Medusa‘ to give them perspective (keep reading and you’ll see what I mean).

It turns out that this ‘most evil’ fixed ‘Demon’ star Algol is a three-star system — a trinity of stars — and when one of the other stars passes in front of Algol from our perspective, Algol is eclipsed and seems to disappear from sight for a bit. No biggie.

So what else did these particular Paters get wrong, misinterpret through lizard-brain fear, because they just didn’t understand it and they feared what they didn’t understand … or couldn’t control (and really, really wanted to)?

It’s an important question, because we’ve been living with that legacy ever since.

To the Cranky-Paters, Medusa was a She-monster who’d turn men to stone with her very gaze, and other myriad horrors (you know the repertoire; it’s pretty much repeated ad nauseum with Lilith and Pandora and Magdalene and others).

Medusa figures in the myths of Athena — the goddess born out of her father Zeus’s head because Zeus, fearing prophecies, swallowed Athena’s mother, Metis (Medusa), who was pregnant with Athena at the time.

And both Medusa and Athena figure in the story of Perseus, who is ultimately sent — with Masculinized-Daughter Athena’s help — to slay Medusa, chop her head off, and basically turn it into a weapon that serves the new Pater-archy regime and agenda (I’m not making that up; see the history and mythology for yourself!).

Medusa, 1892, by Franz Stuck. Image courtesy WikiPedia.
Medusa, 1892, by Franz Stuck. Image courtesy WikiPedia.

Medusa was what we’d now call the dark goddess aspect, with the snakes of renewal and regeneration, and her clear-seeing eyes symbolized the ability of Wisdom to ‘see right through you’ … to cut through the not-you and the not-True.

Kind of like Durga and Kali-Ma — goddesses of ‘no fear’ — and their ability to cut right through the intellectual, ego-centric b.s.

No wonder that wasn’t popular!

The gist, though, is that early on in the Greek mythology, Metis, Medha, Medusa, and the Mother, Feminine Wisdom, were swallowed up and demoted, or disappeared altogether.

That’s ultimately the story of one culture and ethos overtaking another one, and so it did shift from a mater-respecting (matrifocal) and Wisdom-aware culture to an increasingly one-sided (or left-brained) culture that had demoted or negated the Wisdom and the Feminine, as you’ll see below.

You’ll find more of this Medusa story in a Sophia’s Children archive post, She’s Baaaaack – Sovereign Wisdom and Medusa.

But what did we lose in that whole cultural shift? (Like we have to ask, but humor me…)

Medusa, by Vincenzo Gemito (1852-1929). GNU-free/CC image courtesy of Sailko via WikiMedia.
Medusa, by Vincenzo Gemito (1852-1929). GNU-free/CC image courtesy of Sailko via WikiMedia.

What’s in a name? Medusa really means …

Suffice it to say that the origin of the word-name Medusa is sovereign Feminine Wisdom (linked also to the Sanskrit Medhā and the Greek Metis).

When we dig past the smear-layer and unearth the original meanings of the words, we also find clues to the lost history, and the lost Wisdom we’re reclaiming now to bring into these crazy-wild, seemingly Wisdom-free times.

Dig further and not only does Medusa, Medhā, Metis mean sovereign Feminine Wisdom that was appropriated, smeared, hidden, squelched, and so on, but Medusa (Medhā, Metis) also means this:

Wisdom, intellect, but even more than that, intellect that is informed and illuminated by Love.*

Medusa. Medhā. Metis.

Keen intellect that is illuminated by Wisdom, informed by Love, and in service to the wisdom of the Heart.

So when our link to Medusa was severed historically, culturally, and spiritually, what we ended up with over time is intellect divorced from Wisdom, Love, and Heart.

That’s called psychopathy (or one of the other empathy and conscience-free ‘pathys’).

And yes, we can see clear evidence of that just by reading the news, or reading history, or looking around us, or all of the above.

Stella Dei Cieli (c. 1880-1885), by Edward Robert Hughes. Image via WikiCommons.
Stella Dei Cieli (c. 1880-1885), by Edward Robert Hughes. Image via WikiCommons.

So what we’re reclaiming, remembering, re-embodying, and restoring  — what we’re invoking and inviting back into being — is:

Medusa. Medhā. Metis.

Keen intellect that is illuminated by Wisdom, informed by Love, and in service to the wisdom of the Heart.

At this new moon in Taurus, conjunct Algol and Medusa’s clear-seeing ‘third eye’, we can invoke and activate, through ritual or prayer or being receptive to Wisdom, the illumination of Wisdom, the restoration of Love and heartfulness — Heart Wisdom — to come alive once again in our awareness and through us, into our world.

Bringing wisdom, love, heart, back to Earth.

As the saying goes, we take one step and the Divine takes a thousand towards us. And the journey of a thousand steps begins with one step, one prayer, one heart-illuminated moment, one Wisdom-Heart-inspired action, and then another, and another, and another …

Thanks for sticking with me on this one!

If you want to check the locale of Medusa and Metis in your chart, as well as where the 26:56 Taurus new moon falls, use 149 Medusa and 9 Metis (the asteroid numbers) for clues on how this story plays out in, for, and through you.

A blessing on you…

May the eyes and ears of our hearts be illuminated, may we be infused with and guided by Wisdom, and may we, and all we touch, be made well.

Big Love,

Jamie

Sources:

Algol – Wikipedia

Source of Medha translation from Sanskrit