• The Alchemical Journey is a unique, initiatory adventure in personal transformation, following the wheel of the astrological year through the twelve signs of the zodiac. Over a series of twelve weekend workshops, the course will help you unlock your true creative potential and guide you on a profoundly soulful journey of self-realisation and empowerment.

    You can start at any part in the journey and attend as many or as few workshops as you choose, though by taking the whole journey, you will derive the most benefit from the experience.

Walking the Glastonbury Zodiac with John Wadsworth. Part 6: Virgo

Lynne Speight With Corn Dollies

Lynne Speight With Corn Dollies

I’m just returned from this year’s annual pilgrimage into the Virgo figure in The Glastonbury Zodiac, as part of this month’s Alchemical Journey workshop. By way of preparation on Saturday each member of our group explored their relationship to the Virgo archetype and engaged in a number of activities designed to help us drop into the mystery of this often misunderstood sign.

Our Virgo Group

Our Virgo Group

Our day on Saturday culminated with a beautiful exercise led by Lynne Speight, where we each made a corn dolly in honour of Virgo. It was a perfect preparation for our walk into the landscape effigy today.

Virgo is one of the most gentle, nurturing and evidently pastoral landscapes that we encounter on our zodiacal adventure, ripe with the potency of initiation into the mystery of the feminine perspective. With much of her form being marked out by the winding path of the River Cary, we could see her as Old Mother Carey, the caileach, whose sunken jaw and wrinkled face at Cary Fitzpaine puts us in mind of a witch or wise woman.

Virgo by Yuri Leitch

Virgo by Yuri Leitch

This most striking landscape effigy clearly resembles a woman with a long flowing dress, easily conjuring the image of a harvest goddess, overseeing the harvest time of the year that Virgo represents. Our walk takes place around the parish of Babcary, on her swollen belly, its name suggestive of the baby she carries, and there is even a local legend here of a royal child once being hidden in the village.

To get to Virgo from Glastonbury, we seem to leave the Zodiac, crossing the Fosseway, the natural boundary of the ecliptic circle on the ground. For she sits apart from the other signs, somewhat detached, ‘beyond the pale’ (pale being an old word for fence); a woman whose unashamed sexuality is anathema to the patriarchal religious structures that she inevitably subverts. She is the fallen woman of Christianity, and we find the only church in the Zodiac dedicated to Mary Magdalene on Virgo’s wheatsheaf at Keinton Mandeville. We may envisage her also as Magdalene’s Arthurian counterpart Guinevere, furthest from Avalon yet nearest to Camelot, fiercely guarding the integrity of the feminine principle in our round table landscape.

Our Group on Wimble Toot

Our Group on Wimble Toot

This morning, our group formed a circle on Wimble Toot, the ancient round barrow on the nipple of the Goddess’s breast, and we offered up our prayers and deepest longings to her. The Toot is difficult to access and we entered via a well-hidden path, the main track being blocked off from the road by a landowner clearly respectful of her modesty!

As we walked slowly around her pregnant belly and upper body, I was aware of the slowness and deliberacy of the cyclical transition, but also of the urgency and rightness of this time. The seasonal turning of the year became a symbol for the paradigm shift of consciousness that must once again draw upon the power of the Goddess if it is to have any hope of uniting the jagged shards of our fragmented world.

Virgo carries the energy of ritual precision, respect and careful discrimination. She connects us to the magic that exists in the fine detail of life, and through the honouring the harvest ritual, we are offered a key to the timeless eternity of the present moment, so uniting with her opposite sign Pisces, as we transcend the boundaries of ego and lose ourselves in service to a greater oneness. She reminds us that we must attune ourselves to the land, and pay our token of respect to that which feeds and nurtures us. And she reminds us to embrace that which lies beyond the pale in ourselves and to welcome it.

As ever I am indebted to Anthony Thorley for his insight and dedication to the Zodiac. You can join us both on our next Alchemical journey weekend, which is Libra: The Alchemy of Relationship. It takes place in Glastonbury & Barton St David on 9th / 10th October. All are welcome. See our website: www.thealchemicaljourney.co.uk for details. You can also contact me for astrological consultations on 01458 446486.

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Virgo: Harvesting Your Essence

later this month, we enter the astrological sign of Virgo on The Alchemical Journey, and our Virgo Workshop this year takes place over the weekend of 21st / 22nd August, just as the Sun enters that sign. It is always one of the most profound phases of the journey for me.  Colette and I have just been to Babcary on the Virgo figure in The Glastonbury Zodiac, where we will be walking this month, and have recorded the following short film to whet your appetite!

Virgo

Virgo

Virgo must surely be the most misunderstood and undervalued sign in the zodiacal wheel. For beyond the popular image of an innocent virgin, secretary or nit-picker, lies an experienced mistress of purification, discernment, and sexual control. Virgo is the only woman in the Zodiac and one of only three remaining in the whole heavenly sphere. Two of them were chained in the Greek cosmos – Cassiopeia & Andromeda – but Virgo remained free, as the sole representation of the Goddess in the constellations of the night sky.

Virgo by Josephine Wall

Virgo by Josephine Wall

To the Greeks, she was Demeter, with her wheat sheaf, or ear of corn, overseeing the grain harvest and holder of the key to the secret of agriculture. To the Egyptians she was Isis with her child Horus and in the Christian cosmos, Mary with the Christ child. She is a virgin in its older meaning, certainly, as one who owns her own body and chooses when and with whom to unite! Virgo marked the Summer Solstice around 5000BC, and her departure from there is said to have coincided with the end of the Golden Age. She left in disgust, some say, at how humanity had fallen from grace. So, like the mystery school initiates who invoke her return, we are re-imagining her on The Alchemical Journey this month as the Great Goddess that she once was, as we invite her qualities into our lives.

The Harvest

The Harvest

The Virgo phase represents a critical moment in the alchemical year, when the crop must be cut down in its prime, harvested and its essence extracted. In the human life cycle, Virgo represents the rite of passage, where we find out what we’re really made of. This is marked in traditional societies by being cut away from familial roots, through circumcision or ablation, or other initiation rite. We experience Virgo whenever we are examined, judged, cut down to size, as wheat is sorted from chaff. Just as our Leonine experiences have helped us realise and express our confidence and creative potential in life, so our Virgoan ones have set us to task. The harvest goddess shapes and moulds our spontaneous impulses into practical, useful, sustainable projects that serve the greater good. She strips away our indulgences, hones our creative instincts and transforms our promises into everyday miracles, like golden wheat being turned into the food that nourishes a community.

Virgo is ruled by Mercury the wily magician, whose skill and cunning knits together the fabric of life into a seamless dance, his magic embedded in the details of life. Our task in Virgo, then is to sweep, to clean, to tidy, to order, to polish, to wax, to sharpen, to distill, and to become still ourselves as we perfect the ordinary tasks of life. Through bringing mindfulness to our repetitive actions, honouring time, work and our body’s rhythms, we actually open up the possibility of transcending those ritual structures, and entering a liminal space between worlds where transformation can occur.

Wax On, Wax Off...

Wax On, Wax Off...

On our Virgo weekend, I always like to show a clip from the classic 1970s rite of passage film, The Karate Kid, in which a young American wannabe is trained by a Japanese zen master, so that he can stand up for himself against a local bully. In one classic sequence, as part of the boy’s karate training, he is set a series of menial tasks, waxing his teacher’s cars, painting his garden fence, sanding the floor. This goes on for days with no apparent connection to karate, until the boy eventually snaps and accuses the old man of exploiting his trust just to get his household chores done. His frustration then turns to revelation in an extraordinary scene, when he suddenly realizes that in the embodiment of these repetitive actions he has actually learned a series of powerful karate moves which are now second nature to him. As with the alchemists, as they attempt to imitate and perfect Nature’s own creative process in their laboratories, these repetitive trials offer the ritual service necessary to precipitate our inner gold.

Virgo in The Glastonbury Zodiac

Virgo in The Glastonbury Zodiac

In the Glastonbury Zodiac, Virgo is “Old Mother Cary”, her figure drawn by the River Cary, a name suggestive of the Celtic harvest goddess, Ceridwen, mother of Taliesin. The river which rises at the springs of “our lady” paints her flowing robe at Wheathill, her swollen belly at Babcary and her breast at the bronze age barrow, Wimble Toot. She holds her sheaf of wheat at Keinton Main-de-Ville, where her hand rests. These associations continue to enchant our journeys into this landscape temple, which meets us with new synchronicities on every walk.

Our Virgo Workshop this year takes place on Sat 21st & Sun 22nd August.  Click here to find out more and to book a place

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The Sovereign Lion

The astrological sign of Leo this month has overseen one of the most powerful planetary line-ups that we astrologers have ever seen – the Cardinal Grand Cross – that culiminates during these first two weeks of August. Today, there is a new moon in the sign of Leo, and while it remains unaspected from the six planets on the cardinal cross, the Sun and Moon powerfully bear witness to it with their sovereign Leonine quality, conjunct today as they were at the same degree of Leo on the last major millennial gateway – the solar eclipse of 11th August 1999.

Here are some photos from the Leo altar that Colette created for our fabulous Leo weekend on The Alchemical Journey, where we each embodied the sovereign power of Leo.  Each person was given the opportunity to take the “catwalk” along the red carpet, where each were duly crowned in turn.  Not just the most fun you can have on a Saturday afternoon, but also one of the most profound experiences of re-claiming our own personal link to the divine source from where we all originate.  For many people present, it was the first time that they had really given themselves permission to be honoured and celebrated in this way, and it brought up a lot of deep emotional response, as you might expect.   Leo is par excellence the sign of the heart – it is such a personal sign, yet one that claims its lineage back to original royalty – the Sun King, the Nemean Lion, the source of life.  It reminds us of the hero’s quest, the true journey of the Self.

Here are the photos:

The Leo Altar - Created by Colette Lassalle

The Leo Altar - Created by Colette Lassalle

Detail from the Leo Altar: The Thai Lion Before the Rising Sun

Detail from the Leo Altar: The Thai Lion Before the Rising Sun

Detail from the Leo Altar: The Lion Takes Centre Stage

Detail from the Leo Altar: The Lion Takes Centre Stage

Leo Altar Detail:  Mask by Alchemical Journey alumnus, Maggie Bennett

Leo Altar Detail: Mask by Alchemical Journey alumnus, Maggie Bennett

The Leo Altar - Side View

The Leo Altar - Side View

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Walking the Glastonbury Zodiac – Part 5: Leo

Leo by Yuri Leitch

Leo by Yuri Leitch

Our fifth zodiacal pilgrimage of the year on The Alchemical Journey finds us in the sign of Leo, which is one of the largest effigies in The Glastonbury Zodiac, and perhaps the most distinctive, stand-out figure in the wheel. And it is, of course, entirely fitting that Britain’s first heraldic lion should appear so striking and charismatic.

Lancelot & Guinevere

Lancelot & Guinevere

The sign of Leo draws on the element of fire and carries the signature of the Sun, the rightful king, gold and the heart. Where the first fire sign Aries lit the spark that igniting the fire, so it is Leo’s task to tend the sacred flame and keep it burning eternally. The lion is emblazoned on the chest of the questing grail knight and Leo’s place in our Round Table Zodiac is occupied by Lancelot, whose fiery core burns with passion, courage and confidence, and whose heart is bound in love to Guinevere, who takes her place at his side in Virgo.

Hercules

Hercules

For all that Leo carries the authentic energy of the fully-expressed heart-centred Self, it can also reveal a superficially shining imposter – a brightly glittering ego that can temporarily dazzle our senses, impressing us with the polished surfaces of its own self-importance. The true alchemical gold of the heart, by contrast, need make no effort to impress us, for its natural presence radiates truth, such that each one of us may each recall our divine birthright, and, like Hercules, claim the right to wear the hero’s leonine pelt.

It’s probably a good idea to enlist the help of a guide before entering the sprawling effigy of Leo in The Glastonbury Zodiac, as this is probably the easiest figure to get lost in – particularly if you are planning to venture into the lion’s thick and knotted mane at Copley Wood. So we’re grateful to Anthony Thorley, as ever our erstwhile guide into this mystical landscape.

Leo's Head - Yuri Leitch

Leo's Head - Yuri Leitch

As we walk, tracing the outline of the animal’s head, we encounter a number of signs warning us of the dangers of entering too far into this particularly dense piece of woodland – cautioning us, in effect, not to venture too far into the lion’s den. On this occasion we choose to comply – not really wanting to disturb the king of the beasts during his afternoon nap. So we take the “safe” route, skirting the edge of the wood and find the curiously named “Maggoty Paggoty”, site of a Roman villa where two piles of stones now stand, and where a spring rises on the lion’s third eye. Two pools of water, known as Chalkham ponds mark his actual eyes, but these are more or less impossible to access in summer. We also find a sundial monument at Muncombe (valley of the mwng or mane), and the Twelve Apostles Spring, from which twelve troughs descend.

Once you’ve had the lion’s head and body pointed out to you on a map, you’ll always see it. Its head is clearly evident in the shape of the woodland; an old trackway and road define its back and rear, the underside of the body drawn by the River Cary. The Leo figure was Katharine Maltwood’s first discovery and the first landscape effigy ever to be distinguished in a zodiac. Numerous other zodiacs have been uncovered in the eighty years or so since the Glastonbury template was established and it is the lion that zodiac hunters meet first in almost all cases, as if Mrs Maltwood had set an energetic pattern for zodiac discovery in motion.

Welcome to Somerton

Welcome to Somerton

As in all these zodiacs, it is the place names that give it away, for here we are in the Catsash Hundred, with Catsgore and Catsham nearby. And our lion holds the key to the kingdom in its grasp with Somerton on its paw, the former county town of Somerset once acclaimed as the royal capital of Wessex. We find a sleeping lion in Somerton these days – a more sedate market square you could not imagine – but references to its former glory remain with lions adorning its market cross and nearby houses proudly display splendid lion doorknockers; a former inn is also remembered in Red Lion Court. With Kingsdon on the underside of the animal’s belly and Kingweston on its tail, it is clearly a landscape fit for royalty.

Our friend who lives on the land where Bradley Spring rises, just below the chin, showed us a lion carved from stone by her father during her childhood, while the family were living on the lion’s rump at Charlton Mackerell. Unaware of the Glastonbury Zodiac, and not having carved in stone before, he was quizzed by his family as “to why a lion?” to which he could offer no coherent response other than that something had moved him to do it.

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Alchemical Gold & All That Glitters…

Leo by Josephine Wall

Leo by Josephine Wall

Ever had the feeling that you have a much greater destiny in life, a royal or heroic path? Ever feel like the people you encounter in your life should really be laying a red carpet before you as you arrive? Yes, you guessed it.  We’re about to enter the Leo phase of The Alchemical Journey!

Such grandeur probably sounds a bit over the top, and one might well be embarrassed to admit ever entertaining such fantasies. Before we dismiss the idea, though, let us indulge the Leo phase of the annual cycle we are about to enter, and consider how our personal narratives are stitched together. After all, our life stories are never just a collection of random personal events and circumstances; they are woven through with mythic, archetypal, seasonal themes that entwine themselves around everyday experiences, even when we are largely unconscious of them.

Luke Skywalker

Luke Skywalker

We all have the ability to identify ourselves as a King Arthur, a Cleopatra, a Luke Skywalker, or a Lara Croft, and such identification can inspire us to rise to the challenges we face in life, enable us to go beyond our fears and limitations. To have our hearts suddenly ignited with an uncommon enthusiasm, to allow something other-than-human to take us over; to be in the presence of an inexplicable synchronicity or otherworldy power is to glimpse the possibility of who we are, how we may once have been and what we may become.

This month, as the Sun passes through the sign of the Lion, the Zodiac seems to grant us permission to let the divine light within us shine out in the world. We can take our cues from what’s happening in nature. We only have to look at the ripe summer fruits on the tree, showing off their Leonine glory, or the fields of golden wheat and corn swaying elegantly in a royal summer breeze. The work of the alchemist is mimetic; it seeks to imitate the transformational cycles of nature and evoke its symbolic power. So during this season of fruition and growth, we can celebrate the glory of who we are and allow the natural warmth and confidence within us to radiate out.

Children have no problem playing kings and queens, goddesses and heroes. It just pours forth effortlessly from their creativity and their joy. How significant we have become as adults, how careful to distinguish what is real from what is fantasy. Let’s welcome Leo as it generously invites us to reconnect to the spontaneous impulse to make things up in the moment, play-act, and lose ourselves in fabulous stories.

To experience ourselves within a mythic setting through dreams or visionary journeys, or even just being here within the enchanted Isle of Avalon and its great Zodiac temple, is to be in touch with the heavenly half of our being. We should be careful not to overly literalise this imaginal experience, though. Trying to steal fire from the gods to inflate our individual identities invariably leaves us chained to the impenetrable rock of self-importance! Better to honour that great solar power from which we draw each inspirational breath – allow its fiery force to shine through us and radiate out of us, whilst tending the candle flame of our own personal destiny with dedicated humility.

The Green Lion

The Green Lion

There is a fabulous character in alchemy, the Green Lion, often depicted swallowing the Sun and causing blood to flow from it. Green is the colour of transformation, and of the earth, and the lion can be seen as the alchemical flask to which the “sun-which-bleeds” must surrender. After a series of initiatory stages, the green lion reappears as a king marked with seven stars regurgitating an eternal sun of pure gold, a celestial lion of green earth impregnated by the immortal heavens. Part of our journey into the Leo archetype, then, is to distinguish which Lion / Sun we are dealing with – the golden light of our heroic lion-heart or the glittering ego with its polished surfaces and grand gestures!

On The Alchemical Journey this month, we practice being seen by each other and exposing the truth of our hearts. What we realise through this process is that when we allow our innate presence to shine joyfully through us, our ordinarily inflated egos gradually begin to fall into line and give up trying to run the show!

Our Leo Workshop this year is on Sat 31st July and Sun 1st August in Glastonbury. Click Here for More Details…

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Enter the Lion…

We have our next Alchemical Journey workshop later this month – 31st July / 1st Aug – as we enter the zodiac sign of Leo, the Lion, where we’ll be exploring the alchemy of the heart and the expression of our creativity, our confidence, our self-expression, and allowing our true light top shine. As part of our weekend, we’ll be journeying into the Leo figure in the Glastonbury Zodiac. I’ve just recorded this short video in Somerton, on the lion’s paw…

More details about our Leo Workshop…

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Reflections on our Cancer Weekend

Our Cancer Altar

Our Cancer Altar - Created by Colette

Our wonderful Cancerian weekend just passed this weekend, and it has delivered so many beautiful, profound moments, as we explored the beauty and subtlety of this all-too-easily underestimated sign. These included our guided visualisation back through the centuries to harvest the gifts of our ancestors and a beautiful process that Lynne led where we offered our deepest feelings to the memory tree. We painted crab shells, did our customary crab walking game (!) and took a remarkable journey through the phases of the moon.

Painting our Crab Shells

Painting our Crab Shells

On Sunday we paid a precious visit to Bradley Spring in Littleton, and walked the Cancer figure in the landscape, where we encountered a herd of stampeding bullocks making its spongy ground bounce for us so as to remind us that we are really walking on the seabed! There were some very funny moments too as we indulged Cancer’s shadow aspects of self-pity, sentimentalism and neediness – Shirley Bassey, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen and The Smiths; a medley of suffering and longing never felt so good – very cathartic!!

The Cancer landscape figure in The Glastonbury Zodiac takes the form of a ship in Katharine Maltwood’s imaginal wheel, rather than the more familiar crab, recalling an old legend of a ship that once sailed under the lee of Street, and then disappearehttp://www.thealchemicaljourney.co.uk/wp-admin/media-upload.php?post_id=870&type=image&TB_iframe=true&width=640&height=852d. It hides away on uniformly level ground, just a few feet above sea-level. Crouching low in the shadow of the more charismatic Gemini figure, it seems to be nurturing the divine child, as if it were also a cradle or manger, and it offers safe harbour and sanctuary for some of the deepest mysteries of the Zodiac.

The Ship of Cancer in the Glastonbury Zodiac

The Ship of Cancer in the Glastonbury Zodiac (Gail Cornwell)

The figure is formed by drainage ditches or rhymes created through the draining of the land between 1780 and 1820. This makes it the most recent of the zodiac figures to reveal itself, emerging as it has done, entirely appropriately, out of the sea. As we walked the paths, the ground was soft and slightly bouncy, giving a very slight sinking feeling. Just like last year, my legs felt very heavy and although the ground was dry, it was easy to imagine that I was walking along the seabed. I found it an emotional experience – very inward and reflective – disturbed only by the sound of gunfire coming from the Avalon Gun club up on Walton Hill on the nearby Aries figure (where else!!).  A nice example of an Aries-Cancer clash of mood!

Our Group on the Main Mast of the Ship

Our Group on the Main Mast of the Ship

Katharine Maltwood envisaged three pillars of light, extending in the shape of the Celtic “awen”, also considered to be the secret symbol of God. These rays emanate from what Mrs Maltwood called the “Enclosure of the Sun”, a triangular pattern made up of three roads in the village of Butleigh at the centre of the Zodiac, where she assumed the true mystery of the Grail to lie. These pillars of light extend southwards, enclosing the main Gemini twin and connecting in perfect angular alignment to both the poop mast at North Main Rhyne, and the main mast at Middle Drove, along with another significant point in the middle of the ship. We honoured each of these points through a short meditation and sounded out the vowel sounds that make up the name Je – ho – vah, or ah – wen. The zodiac can be seen as a profound container of esoteric wisdom, and through this revelation, the Cancer figure seems to hold the key to it.

An important aspect of the Cancerian stage of The Alchemical Journey involves a visit to Bradley Spring in Littleton, just south of Compton Dundon, which is the source of the Cancerian canals. Anthony and I came upon this through a beautifully synchronous meeting with a very special lady, herself a landscape zodiac discoverer, on whose land the spring rises. Remarkably it classes as a hot spring, similar in chemical composition to Bath’s springs. The spring was uncapped a couple of years ago and its guardian, Sheila, has since created a beautiful sanctuary garden around it, which we were fortunate enough to be able to honour again this year. The way that we are able to be taken to the source in this sign is so beautifully poignant. In Cancer, we journey back along the river of memory to recover a sense of our origins, the roots of our being, our connection with the ancestors, realising how their life force continues to flow through our veins today.

bradley_spring

Through our visit to the Spring and our walk of the Cancer figure we are able to embody this in the land itself. It really is a very moving experience. It really struck home to me again this month how the Glastonbury Zodiac providing a perfect memory theatre for our imaginings.

Our next workshop is Leo: The Alchemy of The Heart on 31st July / 1st Aug.

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Cancer: The Crab & The Scarab

Cancer the Crab

Cancer the Crab

We are familiar with the sign of Cancer being associated with a crab through the Greek and Roman traditions.  Indeed the Latin word cancer means crab, and this well-known crustacean expresses the Cancerian temperament very well.  It lives on the cusp of earth and sea, scuttles sideways, cautious in its movements and has a protective shell covering the soft vulnerable flesh within.  In order to grow, the crab must periodically shed its shell and grow another.  The crab rocks to and fro with the ebb and flow of the tide, which is itself pulled by the ever waxing and waning moon, just as the typical Moon-ruled Cancerian will tend to be pulled more than most by their lunar moods and cycles.  I had a lovely vision during last year’s Cancerian weekend of the humble crab actually being the unsung conductor of the moon and the tide, dancing its dance, in tune with the inward and outward flow of life.  During our Cancerian Weekend, we actively embody the crab, becoming crab-like in our movements and learning the subtle dance of this unassuming yet symbolically potent creature of the shore.

The Beetle with its Ball of Dung

The Beetle with its Ball of Dung

For the Egyptians, Cancer was represented not by a crab, but by a scarab (or dung) beetle, sacred to the Egyptians as a creature of immortality.  The beetle is clearly linked to the moon’s twenty-eight day cycle. It deposits its ball of eggs, rolled in dung in the earth, for the space of twenty-eight days, which is the time it takes for the moon to complete a full revolution through the twelve zodiacal signs.  The Egyptians considered the twenty-ninth day to be a day of resurrection, and according to lunar markings, there occurs the baptism of the beetle, when the scarabeus casts his ball into the water, opening to give birth to the young beetle.  This immersion and baptism became naturally associated with renewal and regeneration.  In this way, the lunar god was always declared to be self-created, never born.  This symbolism seems to fit very aptly for the sign of Cancer, so seemingly introverted and self-contained.

The Scarabeus

The Scarabeus

The Summer Solstice marks the entry of the sun into Cancer in the tropical zodiac on 21st June and we can find this symbolism highlighted through the behaviour of the scarab beetle.  The creature certainly carries solar symbolism, perhaps on account of its ray-like head and the dung ball representing the Sun.  The scarab-beetle god was known as Khepera and was believed to push the setting sun along the sky in the same manner as the beetle pushes his ball of dung, a scene frequently depicted in various artefacts.  The beetle would, for example, push the dung ball to the top of a sand ridge and then allow it roll down again, a motion that would seem to reflect that of the Sun rising to its zenith in the sky at Summer Solstice before descending again.  The scarab can be seen in various depictions apparently holding the sun aloft, suggestive perhaps of the solstice sun.

Khepera, The Creative Beetle God

Khepera, The Creative Beetle God

Whether as crab or dung beetle, Cancer is always represented as a humble creature, yet one with significant powers, whether as conductor or the moon and tide or as bearer of the Sun. It is easy to overlook the humble being in our quest for success, as Hercules famously did when he crushed the divine crab beneath his clumsy feet as he wrestled with the hydra. The crab was placed in the heavens as a mark of loyalty and service and its placement at the crucial turning point of the Summer Solstice highlights its importance, however unassuming its constellation of stars may be. Its star Acubens is the only one we are ever likely to see in our light-polluted skies. Even in our Glastonbury Zodiac, the Cancer figure is the least prominent and the most easily missed. Represented as a ship (rather than a crab) its shape is drawn by the waterways created when the land upon which it stands was reclaimed from the sea in centuries past. Walking that figure last year, several of us felt that we were actually walking in the sea – the earth, just a few feet above sea level, seeming to bounce with each step – in this low-down liminal sign where the margin between earth and sea is fragile to say the least.

The Cancerian phase of The Alchemical Journey is one of the most profound that we encounter in the wheel. It requires us to drop into a deeper, quieter, more reflective place within ourselves, and to sense the rhythms and cycles that keep us connected to our roots, to our ancestral origins. Cancer is the sign that reminds us of home, and if we are sensitive enough it will help us reconcile our put us powerfully in touch with that eternal longing for return.

Click here for details of our Cancer Workshop: The Alchemy of Memory

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Drinking Deep from Memory’s Well

The Cancerian Phase:  Remembering Where We Come From
As the ever turning wheel of the Zodiac now prepares to enter the phase of Cancer, I like to remind myself of what really nurtures, nourishes and supports me, of what is sacred in my life.

Hera's Crab Nips Hercules's Ankles

Hercules & the Crab

Considered in many spiritual traditions to be the gateway through which the soul enters incarnation, Cancer is the sign that beckons us to reconnect to our roots, and is immortalised in the heavens as the Crab, loyal to Hera, who once nipped the ankles of Hercules to remind him of his origins. Somewhat lacking in sensitivity (to say the least), that great brute of a hero crushed that divinely sent creature beneath his feet and carried on struggling with the many-headed hydra. In thinking about this myth, it struck me how our own modern Herculean egos can act in a similarly insensitive way towards our own past, our heritage and ancestral lineage. In striving for individuality and independence we may all too easily over-rule our soul’s irreconcilable need for belonging and continuity, dismissing it even as a kind of childish homesickness. So I always welcome this phase of the wheel, as it draws me back to the source, to the wellspring, where I can drink deep of Memory’s healing waters, remember where I come from and re-vision what I may have come here for.

Mnemosyne the Memory Weaver
Cancer is the sign that evokes Memory. The Greeks knew her as Mnemosyne (mother of the Muses so beloved of poets and artists) and she is no mere archivist or record keeper. Rather, she is pregnant with imaginative potency, a spinner of yarns, a falsifier of facts and a literalizer of fictions. So it is with our own memories, which are never just factual accounts of what has happened to us, but rather a collection of mythic strands woven through events and circumstances, conjuring images of the past which our minds quickly assemble into a convincing order. So in the Cancer phase of the wheel, I prefer to court Mnemosyne with care, working with the stories that feed my soul and reconnect me to the ancestors.

The Solstice Crab

Cancer by Kagaya

Cancer by Kagaya

The Sun reaches its zenith at Summer Solstice as it enters Cancer, and with tentative, crab-like caution, appears to pause, stand still, before descending. In many traditions, this is the time when the Sun God begins his descent into the underworld. So the energy of the Sun succumbs to that of the Moon, Queen of the Night, whose ebb and flow might echo in our moods, making us more psychically sensitive and closer to our emotions. For here we are, deep in the belly of summer, the trees pregnant with their fruit, their roots drawing deep for water and sustenance.

memory_theatre_thumb

A Memory Theatre Play

The Imaginal Memory Theatre
The Greek philosopher Plotinus coined the term epistrophe, to describe the desire inherent in all things to “turn back” toward their original guiding principles or root metaphors, their archai (archetypes). The movement of the crab and the rhythms of moon and tide seem to embody this quality of turning back, as they echo an instinctual longing for home, for roots. One of the most compelling characteristics of the zodiacal wheel, the centrepiece of most western mystery traditions, is that it seems to preserve the integrity of those root metaphors. So when people come to learn astrology, it often feels more like remembering, exposing a tacit knowledge of its imagery and symbolism that already exists within us. I always take care to foster this quality of remembering in my courses through experiential work as it enlivens the learning process. As we enter the Zodiac, I remind people that we entering an imaginal temple, a theatre of archaic memory, through which we may release the alchemical potency of its images and symbols.

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A Sacred Spring & Holy Well

Finding the Source
Here in Glastonbury, of course, we are privileged to have those zodiacal images inscribed in the landscape, courtesy of the extraordinary imaginings of Katherine Maltwood in the 1930s. Each month Anthony Thorley and myself ritually journey along the pathways that delineate each sign in the Glastonbury Zodiac, and we are continually met with profound synchronicities. In preparing our Cancer workshop last year, we were quietly musing over how exactly we should approach the Cancer figure, when an unexpected meeting occurred. Being the least visited in the wheel, located on relatively featureless low-lying land, we were wondering how we should approach the figure. Guidance came in the form of a ‘chance’ meeting with a fellow zodiac enthusiast, who took us to see the recently uncapped wellspring on the land adjoining her house near Compton Dundon. Around the spring, this very special lady has created a beautiful sanctuary garden, and, it just so happens, this spring actually feeds the waterways which draw the Cancer figure in the landscape. Not only had we been shown the way in which we should approach the figure, we had actually been taken to the source of it!

Next Workshop
Our Cancer Workshop 2010 will be held in Glastonbury on 19th / 20th June. For details, please click here.

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Zodiac Medicine Wheel at Sunrise

I’ve just posted this footage of our Zodiac Medicine Wheel workshop from the Sunrise Festival. The workshop was inspired and guided by Alchemical Journey alumnus Rob Blake who kindly donated all the resources. This sand mandala became our centrepiece for the weekend. With some nice shots of the inside of the Zodiac Temple – showing off Colette’s twelve fabulous zodiac altars.

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