A few nights ago, we were sitting on the back deck enjoying a fire in the little clay fire pit, and marveling over the clear night sky.
I love to stargaze, because it always lifts me out of the minutiae in which I sometimes get caught up.
I'm often awed by the beauty of the stars and planets in the night sky, and guided and inspired by the archetypes and myths passed down by our ancient ancestors.
As we were identifying various stars, planets, and contellations, I saw the Pleiades -- the cluster of stars names after the Seven Sisters of Greek mythology.
The Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, were part of the posse of the very inspiring and spirited Goddess Artemis.
The eldest Pleiadian sister, Maia, was associated with growth, evolution, and increase.
Maia passed this quality to her well-known son, Hermes/Mercury, who was known among other things as being a patron of merchants and profit-increase, as well as 'word magic' (or 'power of the Word), communication, and alchemy.
Paired together as mother and son, we might get the mythic guidance that energy alchemy and 'word magic' are very much a part of growth, evolution, and profit-increase.
The Pleiades in the Night Sky
What's interesting to me about the Pleiades is that I often notice them more easily in my peripheral vision.
If I look straight at the star-cluster, it seems to recede from view. Look just a little to either side, and it becomes more visible again.
Like one of those 'magic eye' images that, in order to actually see, you have to soften your gaze and let it appear. Focus more specifically, and the image disappears.
In my experience this is like the Feminine, which can be more easily seen or felt through a non-direct approach.
If I try to rush at the Feminine, or brute-force it with my egoic will, or wrestle with it in a more analytical, Left-brained approach, it disappears. It's like trying to grasp smoke with your hand. It doesn't work.
Maybe this is why defining the Feminine -- and the various traits and capacities associated with the Feminine, right-brain -- is so difficult if we try to do that through the more ingrained Left-brained, Masculine, analytical definitions and standards.
To experience the Feminine, and reclaim our access to these beautiful and much-needed capacities like instinct, intuition, inspired vision, and empathy we have to descend from the long-dominant realm of the intellect into our bodies.
We have to depart from the cluttered to-do lists of the yang drive for outward success and achievement and enter the more spacious, quiet realm of yin. We shift from talking and doing into a more receptive space where the riches of the Feminine reside.
All we have to do is soften our gaze and allow it to appear, and then follow the guidance for growth, evolution, and increase of what's most aligned with our heart and soul path.
Blessings,
Jamie
Images: The Pleiades (1885) by the artist Elihu Vedder; Pleiades star cluster (NASA).
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