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The Festival of Redemption
Subtle Meanings of the Full Moon in Pisces

I have never really been one to believe in superstitions. Friday the 13th had been a work day for me just like any other. It had been a long one, though. Machines never behave normally when Mercury is retrograde and the one I had worked on that day had been a bit of a pill — lots of awkward positions to work in — and my back was telling me about it. Still, it wasn't a bad sort of day. All finished well. Spring had given us a prelude kiss by providing us with stunning weather and I was on my way home, looking forward to the weekend. It was dark when I left the job site.

As I made my way along the Salisbury Highway, the lights of Adelaide stretched out before me and I felt a strange sort of calm come over me as the distant glow of the lights filled my head with the reverie of fire-gazing.I felt as though I was looking out over a vast womb, with each light holding the promise of unfolding life, of gestating potency and it all gave the impression of a great city moving united toward some future manifest destiny. The thousands of street lights looked liked pearls of fire strung in lines stretching to the horizon and snaking their way throughout the city and suburbs. Most people were at home having tea, getting ready for the weekend Footy and having a few beers while they watched the tellie — in short, moving through their lives, most being oblivious to the larger energies around them. I felt a certain kinship with that collective and a sense of belonging to the greater purpose unfolding through the society. I could have sat and stared at the lights for hours, but my own home beckoned and I needed a good soak for my sore back.

In the days that followed, Heaven's shorthand told me it was time for another letter. My experiences of work that day and on the road that night set me to pondering over the significance of one of the more under-rated signs of the Zodiac — Virgo, the Virgin. It is an ancient constellation — possibly the most ancient, for reasons that we will see. It is a sign that expresses the most acute dedication and attention to detail. There are common themes expressed through this great sign: work, dedication, sacrifice, gestation and birth of the Soul, service and attention to purity. My Virgoan friends certainly express these qualities to greater or lesser degree. But, as with all the signs, there is a lot more to this one than meets the eye.

Angelic and Spiritual Connections

I spoke much of the angelic and spiritual connections with Virgo in last year's letter, and we shall continue on with that theme somewhat here. There is another side of Virgo that needs to be addressed, though, and it is in keeping with the theme of the just-past Venus transit, of Venus' representation of one's connection with the spiritual realms and with the energy of the Goddesses in general that certain topics in this letter will be elucidated. Just as Venus has an intimate connection with our humanity, so Virgo does as well, and much more so than is commonly known, for our very Spirit is ruled to a degree by this constellation and there is a direct connection between Virgo, Venus and humanity, though astrologically they may seem to be like chalk and cheese together.

In esoteric lore Virgo has always been associated with matter, with the gestation and eventual birth of “the hidden Christ” and thus with the Mother. But, I have made mention that Virgo is also connected with and rules over aspects of the eternal human Spirit, which is known as the Father aspect of divinity. There is a seeming paradox with these apparently conflicting statements. We should be aware that polarized thought and paradox only occur when we are not able to see the larger view of a situation or idea. Both of the preceding statements about Virgo are true, but they have to be seen in their proper perspectives to understand what is really at work here. As always, the seeming conflict with the information given to us eventually spurs us to look beyond conventional wisdom and our awareness expands as a result.

We should probably begin to unravel our little mystery here by defining exactly what “Spirit” is and the context in which I am using it. To be a little technical about it, there are many densities of matter in our known universe and most humans only see on one of them — the physical plane. But, we know that we are more than simply our physical body. We know we also have emotions, mind and more spiritual aspects. Thus, we are aware that we operate and exist upon several densities simultaneously, although we usually have no registration of them in the physical brain. This is the sort of thing that is spoken of regarding faith when we read “Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” We thus have faith that we are more than a physical body and we act accordingly, based upon our belief. In fact, there are 5 major density levels beyond the physical realm upon which the human being is found, the divisions of which constitute our 7-fold nature (the mental plane or density is subdivided into three in the human constitution). Beyond the human realms there are densities that supposedly go on ad infinitum as we move outward into the vastness of space and “upwards” in the hierarchy of evolution and Being. These various layers of density that make up our other bodies of manifestation are all interlocking and, indeed, layered upon eachother. We actually somewhat resemble Russian dolls to the clairvoyant eye in terms of how we are constructed.

The Jewel in the Lotus

The most rarified layer of our energy fields is the outermost and most extended layer of our being and this is called the monadic sheath in esoteric parlance. It is this body that is the only eternal (truly eternal) part of a human being. Seen over the vast stretches of what we call geologic time, even the human Soul is temporal. But the monad (Spirit) always persists. It is this monad which is the eternal Spirit — the individual “Father in Heaven”. It is from this part of our being that we are able to know God and divine Will, because we are very close to the planes of the divine in that essence. This divine Spirit is thus always with us, always a part of our energy fields and it is the very root and cause of our being. It is from this part of us that all divine Will filters through, but it is so rarified that few people even are able to register it. The only densities of which most people are aware are the physical, astral and mental levels. There is a direct reflection of this monad or Spirit in the Soul as well, and it is in a construct called “The Jewel in the Lotus”, seen at causal levels (our 4th layer). In terms of the 7 chakras or energy centers, the monad is only ever registered in the uppermost (crown) center, whereas the Soul is registered in the heart. The thing most people do not realize when looking at these sorts of things, though, is that all these levels at which the human being is found are but sub-levels of the cosmic physical plane. Thus, from a universal perspective, we are but physical beings in the grand order of the cosmos. It is in this last statement where we begin to get resolution of our paradox around Virgo.

So, we have somewhat defined the Father/Monad/Spirit, and hopefully not confused the issue too much. There is another thing that needs to be defined, though, before we go any further, and that is matter itself. We think we know what matter is but, spiritually considered, what constitutes matter is also subject to one's perspective. From the perspective of Spirit, matter is defined as that which constitutes a form, thus having no consciousness of its own, and is thus inert, to state it simply. The Hindus would say that matter is “not-self”, whereas Spirit is “Self”. Matter is therefore the blind dark stuff of which is constructed every form we see in existence. Esoterically and technically, matter is condensed aether (occultly understood) and is what the occultist would term “elemental essence”. The fullness of what this all means is too much to go into here, but the reader will hopefully see the point. To clairvoyant vision, then, matter is seen as the tiny atomic lives that are congealed together to make a form of any kind. These lives are governed by and exhibit an intelligence of their own, but the thing that differentiates them from Spirit is that they have no consciousness of their own — i.e., they are not Self-conscious. It is these unconscious lives that Virgo is said to rule. These tiny lives form the “pearls of fire” strung on lines of energy which form the matrices of everything within the visible universe. They are the atoms and cells of everything that exists in form.

In part two of this article, Malvin looks more deeply at the role of the Sign Virgo, its relationship with the Mother/Father Spirit and the expression of the feminine. Virgo has a direct rulership over the evolution of all material substance upon our world and this is expressed through the occult Law of Analogy. The sublime purity of spirit calls us through the need for love and service.
Read part two of The Festival of Redemption