If you are new to this site, or have just missed it to begin with, please read this article, the fourth of four groundwork articles. This information will help you to personally get the most from this New Moon Healing Cycle: how to apply the healing suggestions, and to make the Great Year Cycle a powerful healing experience each month, each year.
While researching this information, I have found tantalizing bits here and there, remembered fragments and subconscious longings bubbling up into the collective conscious through art, story, and myth about the Age of Libra.
The Age of Libra (approximately 17,000 – 15,000 BCE) marks the zenith of human consciousness (not to be confused with technical achievement). It is the first of two ages of the Satya Yuga as the ancient Vedics called it; the Golden Age by the ancient Greeks; Zep Tepi, The First Time, by the far ancient Egyptians. That many diverse cultures have a story about it is an important clue to its veracity. We can never be certain how long an age lasted, or indeed how long the Golden part of the Golden Age lasted. It could have been relatively short – or not. I feel that the ages are variable, but average 2000 year per age just to keep things simple.
As I discussed in the Age of Virgo article, wisdom and knowledge was encoded in story, and myth; embedded in natural places and shrines. I will relate the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone to illustrate one such encoded story of the Precession of the Ages, starting with the Age of Libra…..
Demeter, the High Fruitful Mother, and Persephone, The Principle of Becoming and Innocence, lived happily together on the earth and of Earth. They blessed the land with perpetual harvest and none knew deprivation or winter.
During the Age of Libra, Earth’s axis had not yet shifted and, at least around the areas of the so-called ‘cradles of civilization’, there were no seasons. No doubt the ice age flourished elsewhere and may have also been sparsely populated. People living in these harsher conditions would have not had the same experiences, obviously, as those in the temperate Garden areas. They may have had stories similiar to Shangrila and Shambhala, and attempted to find these havens.
Because consciousness in all beings was at the absolute height, everyone lived in relative peace and harmony*. Animals not only did not fear humanity, they lived along side of and communicated pan-species. People didn’t hunt animals, but lived with them in love and high regard. An elevated plant consciousness ensured that a little went a long way toward nourishing all and humanity didn’t have to spill blood to survive. There was no carnivorism in any species: the lion did lie down with the lamb. We have only to note the success of animal communications and recent videos of interspecies devotion and frolic to extrapolate 8,000 years into our own future, to the next Age of Libra, to feel the real possibility of this. A breatharian life-style would be an easeful alternative as well during this era; prana being a prime nourishment.
People lived for long spans of time, did not get ill, and were true stewards of the land. They were egalitarian with no need for politics, hierarchies or wealth. Everything necessary was provided for all by Gaia, our Mother.
Persephone grew into a beautiful young woman. Mother and daughter were supremely happy together, and all suitors were sent away.
This could be a vague memory of androgyny and procreation through parthenogenesis. Today, many animals produce without males, even though the males exist. The Komodo dragon, (Scientific America, December 28, 2006; Philip Yam, author), boa constrictor, monitor lizard and approximately 70 vertebrate animals do so, as well as many more less complex creatures. If consciousness follows form, as I believe it does, then as consciousness changes, so do our physical parameters – much more quickly than current scientific evolution theory gives us to believe. At any rate, the life of the feminine principle was unhindered and free.
One day Persephone wandered distant from Demeter’s watchful eye, and with her young companions came to the Nysian Fields. She picked the wild narcissus flowers and inhaled their intoxicating scent. Suddenly the earth heaved open and Hades, the God of the Underworld, abducted the innocent Persephone, taking her below the earth.
Persephone as the Principle of Becoming and Innocence, is separated from her source (Demeter/Earth) and then seduced by worldly distractions (scent). It is said in Egyptian myths that the Earth upheavals came about because humanity forgot their Divine connections.
During the Age of Virgo a forgetfulness of our origins began as well as a cleverness of ego. Events during the Age of Leo, when consciousness shifted into the Trita Yuga, brought huge geologic upheavals. This injected the principle of survival into The Garden: deprivation and killing to survive.
Demeter, the High Fruitful Mother, became distraught and panicked at Persephone’s disappearance. When she discovered what had happened and that it was sanctioned by Zeus, Demeter tore the crown from her head, clothed herself in mourning, and went among mortals in disguise.
Of course, on the surface this part of the story portrays the rape of the matriarchy and the incursion of the Sky God-ruled patriarchy. But on a deeper level we have the story of the Earth shifting so dramatically that for a time winter covered the land where once there was perpetual harvest. The earth and all her sustenance including recognition of and access to the Divine, is withdrawn from humanity and the principle of mourning and grief resided in all. Reverence for the Goddess principle diminished.
Demeter became nurse to a boy child of a royal house and raised him to be immortal. She bathed him in ambrosia by day and placed him in the fire at night to burn away his mortality. The child’s mother discovered this and screamed in terror. Demeter snatched the child from the fire, revealed her true nature and insisted a temple to her be built on the spot.
This is a fascinating piece to the devolving consciousness of humanity. Not only does humanity not recognize the High Fruitful Mother in their midst, but they no longer understand what is required to maintain pure consciousness. They see evil where there is disciplined practice, or see nothing at all. This points to the beginning of ritualized practices as opposed to spontaneous gratitude and communion with the high Divine principles that were available in Libra.
Both the myths of Demeter and Isis have the Goddesses working as nursemaid to mortals. Isis’ story, that you read in the Age of Leo article, is closely linked with earth changes and devolving consciousness too.
Demeter retired to her temple still in mourning over the loss of Persephone. The earth would bear no fruit, or if any developed, it would rot on the trees. Humanity suffered cruelly from the loss of these dual feminine principles. Fearing humanity’s utter destruction and therefore no worshipers for the gods, Zeus sent Hermes to Hades to tell him to release Persephone. Hades agreed, but first tricked Persephone into eating three pomegranate seeds. As in the Land of Faery, if one consumes food or drink, one is not free to leave at all. The eventual compromise was that Persephone would spend a portion of each year up top, and a portion in the Underworld.
This segment is usually taken to indicate a peasant’s quaint explanation of how we got the seasons that developed after the pole shift. But if we take the time to look deeper, we see that all on Earth has irrevocably changed, not just geologically, but energetically as well. In other words, consciousness has shifted dramatically; the relationship between humanity and the Divine as well as the relationship between women and men – the former now being subject to the capriciousness of the latter’s new gods of the patriarchy.
The myth of Demeter and Persephone takes us all the way from Zep Tepi to our present dilemma. The raw yearning to get back to simpler times that so many of us feel is the subconscious awakening to the Truth of where we have come from. Such a long journey. Now, as we begin the ascent through the Great Year, transiting the cusp not only of the Age of Pisces into Aquarius, but from the Kali Yuga into the Dwapara, we have the work of personal integrity to maintain.
As a point of archaeological reference, much of the Caves of Lascaux are thought to be painted during this time. The artistry and sophistication of these works could not have come from a ‘primitive caveman’ culture, as we envision it, that eeked out a meager existence as hunter-gatherers. What do you think? Click here for a short video tour of the Caves in all their mystery. I feel this cavern was an encoded encyclopaedia of important information to the people of this time; each image invoking a wealth of knowledge as discussed in last month’s Virgo article. It was not celebrating ‘the hunt’ of that much I am sure. It was a shamanic tool for accessing wisdom and experience; something far beyond our ken.
An October 8, 2013, article in National Geographic suggests the hand stencils in these caves were predominantly women’s or perhaps women and transgender shamans. But what if during the Age of Libra Homo sapiens were androgynous and one of the aspects of ‘the Fall’ had to do with our splitting more definitively into male and female genders. This might explain the hands being all ‘women’s hands’….there were no men and women as we know it, they were all ‘one’, that is, androgynous. Its a compelling point of enquiry.
All the images we have of far ancient peoples are derived from bones. We’ve put the skin, hair and contours on them from our own prejudiced perspectives. The jumping off point for these perspectives is the Victorian male academic. As consciousness changes, so does the vehicle to give the soul the experiences it requires for growth. Our hormones may have been staggeringly different 19,000 years ago. Just as amazing as the discovery of dinosaurs being feathered, we may find our eventual vision of how our long ago ancestors looked very much changed.
As we begin to remember our origins, we re-member our lives as they could be. And as consciousness ascends, we will be remembering much more. Only then will we bring ourselves back to the Garden – eventually.
The Healing: For the Age of Libra, this month and from now on, our work is for the good of all our relations: crawling, swimming, feathered, furred; 8-legged, 6-legged, 4-legged as well as the two-legged and multi-dimensional beings. Let’s take care of our sisters and brothers who live out of doors this winter; do what we can, without preference, to help their passage through the cold months. Mix up nuts and seeds with peanut butter and stuff this mixture into pinecones that are hung up outside for birds and squirrels. Deer like salt licks and dried corn; squirrels like dried corn too; bird seed and suet for the feathers friends; leave some uncooked greens for rabbits, etc. Keep water available outside for them specially during frozen times. Then there are the homeless people to consider. Its a tough time for many of us.
The Buddhists have a wisdom teaching that we don’t one-at-a-time reach a higher state. We must all arrive together. That is the teaching of the Age of Libra.
*As we see today in our own time, there are a variety of groups living along side one another: the so called third world, developing countries, industrialized countries, as well as isolated high cultures such as the Kogi in the mountains of northern Colombia. One would expect the same to be true of any time period. For clarity, the prevailing paradigm is what is being addressed during an ‘Age’ and it is expected that the reader recognize that other groups outside that paradigm may also exist concurrently.
At the December New Moon it will be my great privilege and pleasure to publicly offer my western sidereal astrology sessions via Skype or in person. I will have additional details up soon. In the meantime, if you are interested, please contact me and I’ll happily answer your questions. Blessings!
- Full Moon in Sidereal Aquarius August 18, 2016 - August 18, 2016
- Lammas New Moon in Sidereal Cancer August 2, 2016 - August 2, 2016
- Full Moon in Sidereal Capricorn July 19, 2016 - July 19, 2016
