posted February 01, 2009 12:16 PM           

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Medea - Herbalist And Healer
'Of all things upon earth that bleed and grow, A herb most bruised is woman'
Euripes, Medea
Medea, a princess of Colchis, was known as the 'wise one' for her skill of healing and proficiency at
using drugs and herbs. Colchis, which gives its name to Colchicum, the meadow saffron, was a
kingdom on the Eastern shores of the Black Sea, considered a foreign, barbaric land through the eyes
of a civilized Greece. Medea's ancestors were linked to both the sun and healing long before Apollo
became the god associated with these realms. Helios, Medea's grandfather, was the Sun god of the
old order, born a Titan's son. Her aunt Circe was a sorceress, a magician, herbalist and healer who
knew the ancient ways of plants and spices and how to cast spells. Circe had trained Medea as a
young woman in the arts of sorcery, magic and herbalism, teaching her how to mix potions, direct
spells and rearrange matter. Medea was also a priestess in the temple of Hecate, honoring the
goddess of the dark night and magic. Hecate guided her instincts. As a medical intuitive she knew the
magical properties of herbs, the appropriate plants for healing, homeopathic tinctures and the process
of preparing and administering these remedies in her caldron. As the surrogate of Hecate Medea
knew the timing of the lunar cycle and how to draw down the moon when ritual and ceremony was
needed.
However, Medea was unable to withstand the unholy alliance of the goddesses Hera and Athena who
petitioned Aphrodite to conspire with them and cause the princess to fall in love with Jason. Medea
became enchanted by Eros and fell in love with the Greek hero, who had come to Colchis to retrieve
the Golden Fleece. Medea helped Jason achieve this impossible task with the help of special
ointments, incantations and timing. Medea enabled Jason, her heroic/lover, to succeed at the trials set
before him but in helping Jason be successful Medea had to betray her family and flee her homeland.
On their flight from Colchis Medea visited her aunt Circe who absolved her of her betrayal and
eventually Medea arrived at Jason's birthplace, at the foot of Mount Pelion in Thessaly. When she
arrived in her new homeland Medea used her great skill at the arts of magic and herbs to rejuvenate
Jason's father but also used her sorcery to trick the king's daughters into unintentionally killing their
father. To prepare for this procedure Medea disappeared for nine days collecting the special drugs
and herbs that she needed. As the Moon swelled she gave sacrifices to her goddess Hecate, then used
drugs to help Aeson, Jason's father, fall into a deep sleep. She then cut his throat to let the old blood
run out, dismembered him, putting the pieces in a caldron with the liquid herbs she had prepared.
Jason's father emerged from the caldron rejuvenated, forty years younger. Medea's spell captured the
daughters of Pelias, the wicked uncle of Jason who had usurped his rightful claim to the throne. The
daughters also wished to rejuvenate their father and Medea said she would perform the task again.
The daughters prepared their father by dismembering him; however, this time Medea did not put the
herbs in the caldron and their father never emerged.

Having been responsible for the murder of the king Medea and Jason once again were forced to
escape. While fleeing Medea's herbal bag broke open, spilling her drugs seeding the plains of
Thessaly with an abundance of healing and magical herbs. As the first sorceress to perform rituals in
Thessaly Medea is the seminal figure behind the region being known as 'the land of the witches'. Her
myth intimates that she introduced woman's herbal knowledge from Asia Minor into Greece.
In later myth Medea is usually remembered, not as the skilled healer, but as a revengeful and spurned
partner, a woman caught in the grip of jealousy for which she had no antidote. By the classical period
the playwrights depict Medea consumed with rage, murdering her own children to avenge Jason's
infidelity. However, Medea is more a reminder of the great respect and knowledge of healing, herbs
and magic that was brought to the West and then subtly ignored and eventually demonized.
Underpinning the myth are fragments of an older tradition. Jason's name means 'healer' and his
partnership with Medea complements the old ways of healing before the emergence of rational
medicine and the demonization of magic.
As botany evolved away from gathering herbs and digging roots of the pastoral communities to
empirical and detailed research, purification ceremonies and the use of herbs became replaced by
manmade drugs and prescriptions. The connections to the more instinctual, earthy and natural ways of
healing were left behind. Traces of magic, ritual healing and evoking the spirit of the disease began to
disappear in the Western medical tradition. Left to carry the ancient process of magic was Medea, the
embodiment of the archetypal witch. As a heroine Medea champions the feminine wisdom that knows
intuitively knows how to cooperate with nature and her cycles. She instinctually knows the right time
to perform rituals and ceremonies to evoke the healing spirits or exorcize the demons.
When Medea is prominent in a birth chart she reveals the need to explore the ancient feminine
traditions of herbalism, witchcraft and magic ritual. Intuitively we know the natural cycle of the body
and what it needs to be well. Medea reminds us to honor the ancient custom of relating to the plant
world, the wisdom of nature and the powerful healing and transforming properties embedded in the
natural world. Instinctually the witch is the impulse that draws us to remedies and potions at the right
time and is the urge to create ritual and ceremony to evoke the powers of the goddess. Following are
astrological account of how the force of the goddess may be revealed through your horoscope.

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Cassandra - The Prophetic Soul
'And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.'
I Corinthians 13:2, Bible
Cassandra stood on the walls of Troy and watched Paris' ship enter the harbor. Her brother had
returned from Sparta having seduced Helen away from her homeland to bring her to live in Troy as
his wife. With the blessings of Aphrodite Paris and his lover Helen had snuck away from her palace
undetected and sailed across the Aegean to Asia Minor. A dark cloud shrouded the ship as it
anchored. When Cassandra watched her brother and Helen disembark and approach the city gates she
was flooded with images of Troy's destruction, filling her with an ominous and terrible feeling.
Possessed by this eerie perception she uttered a warning to the crowd that was gathered at the gates to
welcome the couple. From deep inside she divined the future: Helen's entrance into the city would
lead to its destruction. Ignoring Cassandra and her prophecy the crowds turned away to welcome the
new royal couple into their city. Time and time again her message was rejected and ridiculed. Ten
years later a similar scenario would unfold. Cassandra would warn the Trojans not to accept the
wooden horse into their city. Once again no one would heed her accurate predictions. The Greeks,
angry at Helen's abduction, sacked Troy and left the city in ashes.
Cassandra was one of the daughters of the royal family of Troy, a sister to both Paris and Hector and
twinned to her brother, Helenus. When the twins were infants they accompanied their parents to the
temple of Apollo to celebrate a festival in honor of the oracular god. During the ritual the twins fell
into a deep sleep. Two temple snakes slithered into their basket as they slept and bit them on their
ears injecting the gift (or poison) of prophecy into them. From that day both Cassandra and Helenus
were known for their prophetic nature.
Having the gift of sight Cassandra entered the temple to serve Apollo being called to her vocation as
his Pythia, the voice of the oracular god. However, Apollo fell in love with her and demanded she
reciprocate his desire. But Cassandra refused to consummate the relationship preferring to worship
the god in spirit, not body. Enraged Apollo found a way to avenge her rejection. Knowing he could
not retract the gift of prophecy that he had given her when she was so young he cursed her so no one
would ever believe her prophecies. The god begged her for one kiss and Cassandra consented. As
she opened her mouth to kiss the god Apollo breathed his curse into her insuring others would no
longer value her prophetic vision. He turned his back on her, condemning Cassandra to see the
perilous future yet never able to be understood or believed. Cassandra, cursed by the narcissistic god
for rejecting him, was later violently assaulted by Ajax upon the altar of Athena when the Greeks
were ransacking Troy. After the sack of Troy the leader of the Greek fleet Agamemnon took her as his
slave back to his palace of Mycenae. As she approached the mammoth walled city her images of

destruction became more and more intense. Racked by the violent visions she screamed a warning for
Agamemnon to not enter the palace foreseeing his brutal murder at the hands of his wife. In her heart
she also knew that entering the city with him would result in her own death.
Cassandra personifies the medial woman whose intuitive faculties and understanding of the
unconscious patterns are not welcomed in an ordered rational society. She sees what others are too
fearful to see and exposes the inevitable patterns that underpin the situation. In an atmosphere of
control and denial Cassandra is marginalized and demeaned becoming the projective reflection of the
fear of chaos and uncertainty. Disbelief and ignorance render her wisdom impotent. When dark
feelings, dread or grief are repressed in the atmosphere Cassandra is the medium of their expression.
Her curse is that she is not identified with her feelings leaving her misunderstood and marginalized.
Her feelings, identified by others as autonomous ravings, isolate her. Cassandra is able to sense what
is taboo and unlived but unable to remain separate from it.
Cassandra represents the archetype of medial knowledge. Unlike the ancient world there are no
longer sanctuaries or sacred places to honor her way of knowing. She reflects the need to be aware of
our medial skills and intuitive knowledge and seek training to help strengthen the ability to use this
skill and not be overwhelmed by it. When Cassandra appears prominently she encourages the
individual to find a voice for the medium through understanding the symbols, images, signs and omens
of unconscious language. She embodies the ancient ways of knowing in a culture that no longer values
prophecy and divination. Her knowledge is not objective but oracular. To embrace Cassandra we
must abandon logic, separateness and rationality and enter into the irrational world where meaning is
revealed through feeling and connectedness. However, Cassandra reminds us that in a scientific and
ordered society our knowing may be rejected. Cassandra encourages us to have the strength of our
convictions and a strong and healthy identity about our beliefs.
Oracular knowing springs out of the collective through an unconscious and unbound participation with
everything in the environment. When boundaries are blurred and the veil between the worlds is lifted
we enter into a participation mystique with the spirits of the world beyond us and may be called to act
as a vessel for their message. Cassandra in your horoscope reveals where you are sensitive to the
pattern of the goddess. Following are the placements of Cassandra in your horoscope by house and
sign.

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Hecate - The Soul In Transition
'Leave those vain moralists, my friend, and return to the depth of your soul:
that is where you will always rediscover the source of the sacred fire
which so often inflamed us with love of the sublime virtues;
that is where you will see the eternal image of true beauty,
the contemplation of which inspires us with a holy enthusiasm.'
Anthony Robbins
Hecate became associated with the dark phase of triple goddess who embraced the spheres of heaven
(Selene), earth (Artemis) and underworld (Persephone). Her initial association with the underworld
was as an attendant to Persephone. It was Hecate who heard Persephone's screams when Hades
dragged her down into the netherworld. Hecate was also present when Hermes escorted Persephone
out of the underworld. As a guardian of the threshold Hecate witnessed Persephone's descent and
release. Her cave is located between the earth and the underworld confirming Hecate's role as an
intermediary, bound to neither world but in between both.
As a threshold goddess Hecate is encountered when the paths of our lives converge and we are
uncertain which fork in the road to follow. Throughout antiquity she was worshipped at the
intersection of roads and by Roman times she was known as Hecate Trivia, the goddess of the three
ways. On the night of the New Moon pots of food were left at the crossroads as votive offerings to the
goddess. 'Hecate's suppers' honored the transition of one lunar cycle to the next on the night that the
old month ended. Statues with three bodies and three heads were erected at crossroads for travelers
to leave offerings and say prayers to Hecate for guidance across an important threshold.
As liminal places where travelers pass from one world into another, crossroads were often
associated with spirits and shades. Hecate became aligned with ghosts and hallucinations as the
ancient Greeks attributed the power to conjure up the dead and the phantoms of the imagination with
her. Known as the leader of souls she was associated with magic, divination and contact with the
shades of the dead. By the classical period Hecate had become affiliated with witchcraft and magic,
known as the goddess of ghosts and night terrors. Her companions were dogs. As guardians of
thresholds and instinctually able to trace a scent hounds represented Hecate's instinctual wisdom. By
later antiquity Hecate had become the patroness of witchcraft.
Hecate's triple aspect was also reflected in the phases of the Moon. As 'Mistress of the Moon' Hecate
governed its dark phase. Sappho called her the 'Queen of the Night' and as a light bearer she often
carried two torches. Knowing the wisdom of cycles and their triune phases of birth, death and rebirth
the lunar goddess also represented the menstrual crossroads in a woman's life cycle. As a birth
goddess she was an intermediary figure not only for souls departing their body but also for souls
entering a new one. Hecate appears at the threshold of change in women's lives as she enters a new

posted February 01, 2009 04:36 PM           

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Ceres, Asteroid No 1, was discovered in 1801. Ceres is closely aligned with the archetypes of Pluto
and the Moon and especially strong when the Moon aspects Pluto. Her process may enter our lives
when Pluto transits the Moon or the 4th house.

Pallas Athena , Asteroid No. 2, was discovered in 1802. Athena is sympathetic to the air signs
especially the justice and strategy of Libra and the intelligence and objectivity of Aquarius. She is
aligned with the masculine archetypes of Mars and Uranus and close to Jupiter, her father's realm.

Juno, Asteroid No. 3, was discovered in 1804. Juno is the goddess of marriage and social customs.
She reverberates with Libra and the 7th house. Her passionate side is reflected through the 8th
principle of Scorpio and interchanges between these two astrological principles reflect the goddess.

Vesta, Asteroid No. 4, was discovered in 1807. Vesta is the spirit of the 6th house, the domain of the
sacred in the everyday, the rituals of work and well being. Planets in Virgo respond to the archetype
as do inner planets aspecting Saturn, the need for authenticity.

Hygieia , Asteroid No. 10, was discovered in 1849. The axis of health in the horoscope is the
6th-12th polarity. The Sun symbolizes the vitality and the ascendant suggests how we conduct that
vital life force. Chiron is the archetype of healing. Hygieia is very much concerned with these
principles.

Ariadne, Asteroid No. 43, was discovered in 1857. Ariadne's story plumbs the depths of the water
houses. She leaves the familial terrain of the 4th house to be abandoned by her lover in the labyrinth
of the 8th but awakens to her divine connection in the 12th. Neptune aspects to Venus or Mars may
highlight these themes. Ariadne's process is revealed with transits to planets in the 8th house or Pluto
transiting Venus or Mars.

Europa, Asteroid No. 52, was discovered in 1858. Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn and their rulers
Venus, Mercury and Saturn represent the earth instinct. Of all three signs Taurus is the sign most
closely aligned with Europa's passions and power. Planets in Taurus or the second house constellate
the mythic pattern while transits through the second house or to Venus may evoke issues concerning
values and resources

Pandora, Asteroid No. 55, was discovered in 1858. Pandora is a change agent and therefore may be
sudden and unexpected like Uranus. Her curious nature and marking of threshold change is Mercurial,
linking Mercury and Uranus. As an agent of transformation she has a Plutonic essence as well. Planets
in Gemini or Mercury aspects to Uranus or Pluto highlight the nature of Pandora.

Mnemosyne , Asteroid No. 57, was discovered in 1860. The Moon records, reflects and reveals
every heartbeat, breath and nuance of primitive life. Therefore the progressed Moon evokes memory
as it progresses through the horoscope. Aspects between the Moon and Mercury as well as other
planets aspecting these planetary archetypes reveal the process of feeling and rational memory.

Hecate, Asteroid No. 100, was discovered in 1868. Aspects to Mercury may signal how we might
manage crossroads, our facility for change and adaptability. Crossroads in the life cycle are mapped
out by the cycle of the slower moving planets while personal crossroads are reflected in the transits
of the transpersonal planets to the personal ones. Note the South Node of the Moon.

Cassandra, Asteroid No. 114, was discovered in 1871. Cassandra revels in the world of Neptune -
the archetype of the medial woman. Aspects between Mercury and Neptune, or Mercury in Pisces
reflect Cassandra. Interconnections between Jupiter and Pluto may also ignite a similar pattern.