Astrology & Healing

(Click on Virgo or Capricorn to access the signs below.)

We're used to thinking of TAURUS as 'the bull' but this sign is a feminine, 'yin' sign of the zodiac. In her book, 'Jungian Synchronicity', Alice Howell talks lovingly of India, where the bull and the cow are still sacred:-

 

"... Cows are leisurely creatures that slow down traffic, bulls take mud baths, and sex is worshipped for its life-giving powers..."

(Link to Free Digital Photos by clicking on the photo opposite.)

 

 

This is fertile 'springtime' in our part of the world. And we celebrate the festival of Beltane on May 2nd.  Taurus seeks security: what is mine, what can I hold onto, what do I value? In Kahlil Gibran's 'The Prophet' when he is speaking to the people of Orphalese of 'Houses', he questions them:-

 

"... what is it you guard with fastened doors? Have you peace... have you remembrances... have you beauty... Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master?"

 

(You can link to the work of Suat Eman on Free Digital Photos by clicking on the photo opposite.) 

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The sign of VIRGO is known for its attention to detail and its need for perfection. Carl Jung has some interesting things to say about perfection. The quotation below comes from his 'Answer to Job':-

 

"... completeness is always imperfect... perfection is always incomplete, and therefore represents a final state which is hopelessly sterile... Perfectionism always ends in a blind alley, while completeness by itself lacks selective values."

 

There are often issues around integration and discrimination for Virgo.

 

Virgo energy is also concerned with health. Its glyph represents the large intestine where the body decides what needs to be eliminated from the system.
Virgo's astrological 'house' (area of life) is the sixth house of health and work and service.
The words below are taken from Kahlil Gibran - an interesting slant on our attitudes to work:-

 

"Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy."

(Photos from Free Digital Photos.  Click on the photos themselves to access the website.  The image immediately above is by Andy Newson.)

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CAPRICORN is a sign that's related to 'civilisation'. And in our civilisations, we have many rules by which to live. Saturn, Capricorn's ruler, is connected to laws and responsibilities. The quotations below are from Kahlil Gibran's, 'The Prophet' from his sections on 'Law' and 'Crime and Punishment':-

"You delight in laying down laws, Yet you delight more in breaking them..."

"Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you... I say that even as the holy and righteous cannot rise beyond the highest... So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also."

(Link to Free Digital Photos by clicking on the photo above.)

 

Capricorn relates to structure and form, which includes architecture and organisation, as well as the skeleton on which our bodies are built. We might rebel against the strictures in our lives at times, but without some kind of infrastructure our bodies would be blobs and our organisations would be chaotic!

The inner hardness of this sign is heard in the words of a song by Simon and Garfunkel:-

"I've built walls, a fortress deep and mighty/That none can penetrate... I am a rock; I am an island."

Capricorn - being the opposite sign to Cancer - does not sit easily with feelings and can tend to wall off sensitivity and vulnerability in order to cope with life. On the other hand, there is a side of Capricorn which is able to 'let its hair down' and party! The Roman 'Saturnalia' festival took place around the time of our 'twelve days of Christmas' and society's rules were turned upside down during the celebrations. Slaves became the masters and vice versa and there was an atmosphere of 'anything goes' during this time!

'An old head on young shoulders' would be a saying that fits well with Capricorn's energy. It's a sign that becomes more relaxed and playful with age. Jenny Joseph's wonderful poem speaks to this:-

"When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple... spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves... gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells..."

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