Aleph – A Vesta Story

VestaI just finished reading Aleph, Paulo Coehlo’s latest book. A friend lent it to me and I devoured it in a day.  In the book Paulo takes a journey across Russia and encounters a past life love. Hilal who is without doubt Vesta. In a post earlier this month when describing the goddess asteroid Vesta and the essence of who she is, I referenced Paulo’s book Eleven Minute’s, I hadn’t read Aleph yet.

Hilal in Paulo’s book is a woman who in her past incarnation was burned for being in touch with her feminine power and Paulo is partly responsible. In this incarnation his Karma is to be in service to the feminine and in this book he has a beautiful description of the injustice to the feminine, describing it in a way so as to right the wrong.

There is also a beautiful description of how Hilal transmutes her devotion and love into music.

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Aleph

A place that captured the heart of a western woman!

The Dalai Lama was quoted as saying that the “world would be saved by the western woman”. I am not sure of his reasons for saying this, but one thing that I can say for sure is that if anyone has the power to do it it is the Western woman. We in the west have economic power. We have education and independence and we have laws that while sometimes may fail us in the existing system are in place to protect us and nurture us! Wow…what a gift that if we chose to, we can do so much with.

 

At the end of 2011 I took a trip to Nepal for a Trek and a trip of a lifetime. We were there seeking enlightenment on 11/11/11.  I feel enlightenment, self esteem, feminine power are the right mix with our gift in the west to give us the off-the-charts power of changing the world.

On my voyage I met Sonam, who in addition to being our Sherpa Guide, runs with her husband an organization called the small world. https://www.thesmallworld.org/. Together they grew an organization that has built schools, shelters, and economic empowerment programs for women in a country were the development and protection of women in the midst of all else, is not a priority.

Nepal is a truly special place. A place where I felt instantly at home. The people, the beautiful mountains, the deeply spiritual culture. I met many truly feminist (not feminine… in fact quite the opposite) men. One expat I met while there commented that while many western men came to the east to find a nice servile woman, not in Nepal. For Nepal, it was the draw of the western women to the Nepali man. What I realized was that while the western women had economic power and needed enlightenment to realize there power and use it. The Napili women is very enlightened and in the East they need only economic power. They need education, and structures such as water systems to support their development. (it is the women’s role in the mountainous regions of Nepal to fetch water, which can take up half the day. The small world has also been instrumental in several water projects that have freed up the woman’s time to allow for education. A couple of us went back in March of 2012 and were shown first hand the incredible work that they have been doing

 

Gender Studies in Nepal

Since I am in Canada, I have set up donations on my donation button at www.threemoongoddess.com to support charities that are partnered with the Small World. I think that Astrology is an amazing tool to help women here in the West with self understanding, direction and life purpose and so I have been providing reports with a donation to support one of these charities. If you feel moved to, and if you are in the US you can also support these guys by going to there site at https://www.thesmallworld.org/.

Vesta – Virgin or Harlot?

25680962_sYou wanted to make war…. And I kissed you. You softened. But then remembering you needed to fulfill your duty, you turned away. I kissed you again. I told I needed you to weakening you. I needed to.

Why does Vesta do what she does? Vesta is focused dedication. She is the holder of the hearth and the sacred flame.

What is the hearth and the sacred flame symbolically? To keep a house warm in the time before electricity someone was responsible for making sure of the fire; keep that one coal in the stove or fireplace, and not let it go out. Similarly a flame was kept at the centre of the town and kept alive as a symbol community.  Keeping this focus and dedication kept things together much like the fire at the centre of the earth.  For gravity comes from the center of the earth. It is what hugs the earths inhabitants to it tightly. Without it we would float around without direction or anchor. This heart beat of the earth, this constant that keeps it all together, is the role of Vesta.

In Greek times she was a chaste virgin. But in ancient times she was the sacred prostitute involved in sexual union for something beyond herself. It was only in patriarchal times that she gave up sex for chastity. Doing so with the same heart of focused devotion to the patriarch when sex became a sin as she had  to sacred sex in the ancient world.

Maybe the Virgo man can help us to understand the “sacred whore” in Vesta. When Ophira and Tali Edut tell us about the Virgo man in their book Love Zodiac they describe a well put together guy, known for clean freakishness and total control. But they warn, the Virgo man has a little bit a sleazy side and this can come out when he’s loosing control or flipping out.

If we challenge our thinking… is it really sleazy? Maybe in line with his character he is seeking the path to purity….Vesta in her ancient times would have taken her wholeness and and offered herself up bring him back to groundedness.  Paulho Chehlo (a Virgo), plays around with this concept in his book Eleven Minutes. A story about a prostitute and sex in the sacred and profane. Tantric practices take us to the same place, using the fire within us to enlighten.  And sublimation, the act of taking that fire and focus and transforming it, takes Vesta to the same, and let’s face it, socially acceptable place of giving great dedication and focus to wonderful causes.

So Vesta’s role was not so much to be a chaste virgin or a sacred whore, but to use her wholeness, her containment and focus for the betterment of humanity. And to do so… there are no rules!

But first she must make sure she is whole.  This she can do by taking that fire and focus inward.

Tools that will help her on her path: yoga, meditation, connecting to what is her fire and how she uses her sexuality, quartz and serpentine crystals

When she is in her Flow, her gifts are: focus, commitment, work, dedication, service