REVELATIONS FROM THE UNDERWORLD: Vesta-conjunct-Mercury trine Pluto – inconjunct Saturn, The Scorpio Full Moon, Mars-Pluto-Mercury Retrograde

Where do I even begin. I woke up this morning at 4 a.m. after a dream that revealed the time of my death (checks out astrologically, nowhere soon, don´t worry) and very specific pieces of information (key dates and such) that would facilitate my journey ahead. It looks like Shadow-Working and Priestess-ing is certainly The Big Theme for me this time round. As is working with the energies of the Lion Goddess – and potentially – down the line – a deeper form of Buddhism (I take a syncretic approach to religion).

Given current astrology, I would not be surprised if that struck a chord with many other facilitators at this time.

In my dream, and it was one of those dreams where you know you´re not really dreaming – I had chosen to die for some reason and had jumped the queue (there was a queue, yes). I was administered with Serpent Venom (Lachesis), but it failed to work. Within the dream I saw my etheric body travel to other spaces, to deliver messages it needed to. I was in a state of euphoria and giddiness. Then I returned to my dream-body. I realized I had a job to do, decided it was time to leave the hospice, and very joyfully decided to live.

Then I woke up. In this reality (to be clear).

What amazed me is the specificity of the information I received in the dream. I was guided to key dates matching profound astrological shifts in my life and in the lives of those nearest to me. I took down some notes, and now I´m writing to you guys.

Be it through a prophetic dream, a message from the world around you, writing you see on the wall, a book you read – this is the time to pay attention to messages as they seek you out. Mercury (The Messenger) conjuncts Vesta (The Priestess) at 16´58 Taurus (The Earth-Plane, Sensuality, Relationships with the Material world). Most of these messages will be related to the way you Serve on this Material, Earthly Plane. (Chimed in well with the messages I received).

I say this connects with the archetype of the Underworld, and related themes of Death, Transformation, Re-birth and so on because Vesta/Mercury also trines Pluto (17 Capricorn), Lord of that Realm (as per later Greco-Roman mythology). Pluto rules Scorpio, which naturally opposes Taurus´ energy – that only reinforces the balance between the Upper and the Lower expressions of Earth-energy. Think of green hills and pastures, mountains and meadows, trees, rivers and so on vis a vis the nurturing depths of a cave, the darkness of the Void beneath the Earth´s Surface, the fiery-red core.

So in other words, it may be a link between priestess-messaging-death/rebirth – be in in the physical or the archetypal way, or both. Or, considering Pluto´s position in Capricorn, a glimpse as to the legacy you are called to leave behind by way of the Service you perform in the tangible Earth-realm.

That question of legacy – what you are called into being to leave behind for future generations to inherit – is also reinforced by Vesta/Mercury´s inconjunct with Saturn Retrograde (15 Sagittarius). It means that the message we receive now tells us about the belief systems we need to either detach from, or consolidate our belief in. It tells us about the roads we need to take to get to our desired destination and need to cut away from things that ultimately lead us elsewhere.

For those of you with bodies near 15-17 Libra and/or Cancer will experience this as a powerful Yod (Finger of Fate). That is a current of karmic acceleration, bringing you to a pivotal decision point – where you choose to remain in one cycle, or to move to another. In my case, For me that meant that my South Node completed the Yod. It makes sense – a profound release or ´letting go´ (and a letting go of wanting to let go, to get meta about it).

There´s another reason why the Underworld is involved so strongly in this alignment. Multiple Retrogrades. Here´s a brief timeline (and other alignments as well, for context):

Mercury conjuncts Vesta – 16´58 Taurus at 22:10, UTC, 16 April 2016.

Mars Retrograde Begins: 8´54 Sagittarius at 12:13 pm, UTC, 17 April 2016

Vesta trines Pluto Retrograde – 19´29 Taurus at 2:29 am, UTC, 18 April 2016

Pluto Retrograde Begins: 17´29 Capricorn at 7:25 am, UTC, 18 April 2016

SUN SHIFTS INTO TAURUS, LEAVES ARIES: 15:29 pm, UTC, 19 April 2016.

FULL MOON IN SCORPIO: 2´30 Scorpio at 5:23 am, UTC, 22 April 2016

Mercury Retrograde Begins: 23´36 Taurus 17:19 pm, UTC, 28 April 2016

In a nutshell, there´s plenty of messages coming from the Shadow / The Darkness (in its Sacred, and less Happy forms) / The Underworld. You see this the Pluto-Vesta/Mercury trine, the Pluto Retrograde (5 hours later) and the Full Moon in Scorpio.

There´s also a strong reminder that – no matter how deep you get – the work you do is still meant to be drawn back to the Surface, onto this more visible manifestation of physical reality and the lives we lead within it. That comes from Vesta, Mercury and the Sun in Taurus´energies (especially after 22 April). Bear in mind that Mercury retrogrades in Taurus on the 28th of April, until May 21/22 (depending on where you are in the world). Mercury finally leaves Taurus on June 12/13.

Between now to mid-June – it is an excellent time to ponder the messages of service that come to you now. I would suggest against entering any new business / energetic mergers / intimate relationships or partnerships at this time – and to take the time to review, integrate and reformulate your own strategies. It´s also a great time to take stock of your energetic and material reserves and to thinking about ways you can ´give back´, be it through charity, investment in environmental conservation, you name it.

The Mars and Pluto Retrogrades are very different kettles of fish. And I´ll cover them in a different article. Essentially a time to slow down, pay attention to the health of the body (especially with regards to movement, the sciatic nerve, hips, thighs and so on – from – http://www.homeoint.org/morrell/astrology/medical.htm – just as a general guide). Essentially a time to look before you leap (check to see if there´s a cliff before taking the plunge into something new).

The Pluto Retrograde essentially asks us to take the time out to sit with the deeper substance of the Self. During the Dark Goddess workshop I held, many new techniques of doing so emerged spontaneously through the space held. I look forwards to being able to share them with you 🙂 As a general introduction – turn off all the lights, snuggle up with your favourite black and a nice grounding crystal (trying getting natural smoky quartz – some of it looks so dark, it looks black!) and observe.

More on all that when it´s time to write about them. I can see why I was told to take a timeout from sessions till the 21st 🙂

Keep dreaming, keep listening and stay tuned for the messages that come!

Blessings, hugs and Love!

Priestess Bairavee Balasubramaniam PhD

The Sky Priestess

Post © Bairavee Balasubramaniam, 2016.

Image: Fresh crater on the surface of Vesta photographied by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft OTD 63 full.jpg – By NASA/JPL [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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A Dream of Asherah … Messages from the Goddess

 

The Goddess weaves her Magic and Mystery through Love, Joy, Warmth and Play. But equally so through Sorrow, Grief, Abandonment and Pain.

I had a dream last night in which I was shown, once more, the multi-facetedness of Her Presence in The World. She is the moving, living, breathing force that moves through All. Seen and Unseen.

It was a powerful reminder of her Love. In the dream, she helped me find my strength to close the door to a powerful karmic current in my life I was ready to release. I saw her wear multiple faces, some of those who had hurt me, some of a Higher/Deeper Self, and many others.

It was a realization and a reminder to see the personal hurts and attachments we associate with our human life as part of her Sacred Dance. And to trust in that Dance, and our ability to evolve through it.

As we walk in Faith with the Goddess, we understand this complex tapestry She weaves with us, as co-weavers, or co-creators of Experience and Consciousness.

Be She Asherah. Kali. Diana. Hecate. Dhumavati. Ixchel. Pele. Brighid. Inanna. Sophia. Gaia. By these names, or any other name, or no name at all.

She is here with us now. And always has been. And always will be.

Hail Goddess! Hail the Mother!

Blessings and Love,

Priestess B. Bairavee
I AM Rising: The Goddess Awakens

❤ ❤ ❤ I thank my dear sister Petah-Jane Auckland-Hall for giving me the space to figure out what all this meant for me, in my work and spiritual being. She is a lovely soul that I value and appreciate deeply in my life. She runs the page The Way of the Priestess .

Image of Asherah – By Deror avi (Own work) [Attribution, CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons. Fair Use Policy.

SPIRITUAL SHIFTS & BREAKTHROUGHS

Spiritual evolution is a tough thing to measure, however, there are certain markers which indicate that a ‘shift’ has happened. If you’re still in the middle of a particular phase, the inverse might apply (especially if you’re at the cusp of a spiritual breakthrough). Bear in mind that the process is never-ending, it just completes one chapter and starts anew, like an ascending/descending spiral.

The build-up to a shift often entails the breaking down of all you thought you knew, all you thought you were. It is, generally speaking, not an easy process.

Once a shift has happened, your paradigm is re-set. Sensitivity tends to increase, as does the capability to withstand all that it entails.

You are better able to perceive spiritual energies / to understand the psychological nature of your attachments and responses to the world.

You are likely to re-interpret key aspects of your spirituality in new ways. You might realize that something you thought was no longer a part of you, still is. Or you might realize something you identify with now simply does not resonate. You might be drawn to a paradigm you had dismissed before, or move away from something you’d been following from a while. Possibilities are endless.

You will begin to notice things you had taken for granted before, or things previously invisible to your method of discernment. At the same time, your ability to discern will (most likely) lead to a lessening of ego-based judgment. In short, you can see things better for what they are, but this does not affect you as much as it did before.

Your relationship with the earth deepens, as does your need for periodical grounding.

You are less able to accept vague generalizations about a ‘better, higher’ spirituality and begin to question ‘accepted wisdom’.

Rather than renouncing that-which-makes-you-human and the energetic network that links you to this physical plane (and others), you deepen your sense of shared humanity & embodied sentience.

The constructs of Up/Down, Male/Female, Lower/Upper, Light/Dark realms ceases to have the power of sanction and division. They are, all, equally sacred and part of an indivisible whole.

As you continue to evolve, it is important to seek out others who can help you in the process. No one has the answers to everything. It’s within the Self, yes, and the Self is a part of the Universe seeking to figure itself out, yes … but if we could access that knowledge, we wouldn’t quite be on the path we’re on…

You will find the need to constantly check in with the spiritualists/counselors you work with to ensure they have made the necessary shifts in themselves, so that they can then better work with with you. (That’s one of the reasons why the guru/mentor paradigm is a little hard to work with in this timeline – everyone keeps shifting so fast! )

The people who are drawn to your work will be different. Their needs will reflect the vibration that you now embody. If you’re seeing a pattern in your clients / recipients of your services, pick up the message the Universe is sending you.

Whilst your own growth will be a source of joy for you, you will constantly be amazed at how quickly young children seem to accelerate their own wisdom. It is a powerful reminder to remain humble and to realize that there is always something to learn.

Priestess B. Bairavee
The Sky Priestess

Image: Multiple cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning strokes – NOAA.jpg, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Post © Bairavee Balasubramaniam, 2015. All rights reserved.

** Please note that none of the information presented here is meant to replace advice from a medical, healthcare, legal and/or other professional. How you choose to act upon the advice given is entirely based on your own free will. By engaging with this work, you also accept the author’s non-liability for any consequences that may emerge from reading this work. You also accept that any part of this work can be used for non-commercial purposes with proper citation to the author and her website www.bairaveebalasubramaniam.com, T&Cs apply.

The Priestess In the Re-Making – VESTA RETROGRADE IN PISCES, OPPOSED THE NORTH NODE IN VIRGO

Someone reached out to me a little earlier, wanting to know why things felt .. . weird. There’s a tonne of stuff going on in the Universe right now, and quite a few exact aspects in our neck of the cosmic woods. Jupiter opposed Chiron, Venus preparing to oppose Vesta, Vesta opposing the North Node, Uranus opposed Juno, Pallas Athena shifting into Capricorn (with Ceres’ recent re-entry into Aquarius) and so on …

There’s just a lot happening. As a Priestess / Spiritual Facilitator, I feel the effects of the Vesta Retrograde quite keenly. I suspect many of you who read my work would do as well.

In Pisces, the Vesta Retrograde basically asks us to Surrender, Have Faith-in-whatever-it-is-we-consider-Sacred, and to Let Go of what no longer works. We’ve been doing a lot of that with 3 years of Saturn-in-Scorpio, but this time around it’s not so much about the Hero/ine’s epic Journey into the Underworld-and-Back, it’s more like the washing away of Piscean illusion, delusion, entrapment and spiritual glamour (meant in the magickal sense).

My take on this energy is to simply let it move through you. Keep no expectations of what must or ought to be, especially in terms of your relationship with Spirituality. You’ve got the chance right now to put an end to far older karmic patterns, contracts and past-life-lessons. There’s a lot of dissolution going on, a lot of messages that come through endings and finality.

Stay open, be compassionate – especially if that means starting with you. Priestesses and Spiritual Facilitators are born of wounds – we become ready to serve once we begin to learn how to work with them, and in ways that will not harm others in search of our work.

Try not to force a logical narrative or understanding on what you’re feeling now – Pisces’ energy is anything but rational. Just let things unfold and allow the less conscious parts of your brain & psyche outlets to channel themselves into. Some of you will turn to prayer, others to solitude and nature. Some will seek to escape into obsessive-compulsive behavior, others will feel the need to fast or exercise some kind of regiment. Some will simply need sleep and sanctuary, and others will actively seek a way to make the world move a little faster. Generally speaking, if things are simply not flowing – don’t try to force them to.

Be as receptive as you can to the powerful currents of the collective sub-conscious moving through us all and let them guide you to where you need to go. Stay aligned with your sense of inner discernment and let yourself experience the powerful alchemy of Pisces, as its waters take you to new shores.

You will find great release through forgiveness and compassion. This is always the case, but more so even now. Spiritual work and rituals of release will be particularly effective now, but use them with caution and seek help from an experienced facilitator if unsure.

Vesta’s powerful lesson – to me at least – is about letting go of those wounds that started me on the spiritualist’s journey. It means changing what I thought and felt a Priestess / Spiritual Facilitator was. The wounds do not cease to exist, but an identity of service solely born of them is released. And so new chapters can begin, new journeys, new lessons, new energy can then enter the work that I seek to do.

I suspect many Priestesses and Spiritual Facilitators are feeling this in their own ways. The Vesta Retrograde ends on November 13th in Pisces and it finally re-enters Aries on December 5th, 2015. That represents the completion of Vesta’s cycle around the zodiac, beginning on February 25/26, 2012, 3 years ago!

But why, might you ask, does Vesta gain so much importance in the skies now, when there are so many other exact aspects?

Because of her proximity to the Nodal Axis. Vesta conjuncts the South Node in Pisces, opposing the North Node in Virgo.

Quite literally, new paths of Service open as we release attachments and identifications to certain types of wounds and vulnerabilities that set us upon the path we were on.

In other words, we allow Vesta to be re-born as we release her old identity and the karmic dynamics/attachments that required that identity to come into being. Some of you might find some clues as to that how/where/what/why that particular identity was born by looking back to September 25/26, 2006 – when the roles were reversed and Vesta in Virgo opposed the North Node in Pisces.

I found that my breathing difficulties and instant need to go pilgrimaging in Nepal started right after Vesta re-entered Pisces (in my 9th house of long distance travel). Many things began to be washed away, and I begin to see what this process seeks to uncover.

A New Priestess. A New Path of Service. A New … Chapter.

And by new.. I simply mean a stripping away of whatever fear, shame, pain, or attachment to certain narratives it was that made us forget what we were in the first place.

Spirit.

Bairavee Balasubramaniam
The Sky Priestess

PS – For those of you new to my work, I do not consider Priestess energy as exclusive to women. It is an energetic archetype – a particular way of connecting with some sense of the Sacred and embodying that connection with/to others. This archetype can manifest in people irrespective of their biological attributes / sex at birth. The Priest, as I understand the term, refers to a different archetype – you can think of it as the difference between the High Priestess and the Hierophant in Tarot. To phrase it a different way, I’ve met Priestesses who were men and Priests who were women; men who understood the Divine Feminine and women who perfectly embodied the Masculine; and beings who understood both, and much, much, more. And that just makes the world a whole lot more interesting.

Post & Image: ‘Priestess Bairavee in Nepal, 2015’ © Bairavee Balasubramaniam & Ashoka Mohannan (respectively).