This article is from my monthly column in Supernal Magazine, May/June 2024 edition
May until August 2024 is prime to contemplate our Medusa archetype as liberating Uranus passes the fixed star Algol, known to embody the snake-haired gorgon.
The ancients regarded Algol as the most evil star in the Heavens - unfortunate, violent and dangerous. They originally called the star Lilith, the demonised first wife of Adam.
Medusa and Lilith are both held in myth as powerful and beautiful women who were villainised, exiled and turned into objects of fear. They have been used to project our own shadows onto as we fear and deny them in self.
Algol was later associated with Medusa’s decapitated head, partly because it’s located in the constellation of Perseus, named after the demi-god who killed her in the Greek myth. Further, its regular eclipsing spooked the ancients so they called it the ‘Blinking Eye of the Demon’.
Algol is actually more than one star: it is a binary triple star system, with two main stars orbiting each other and a third at a greater distance. This causes the cluster to regularly eclipse itself appearing like a pulsing blink.
Myth decodes
In the myth, Medusa began as a beautiful and pure oracle goddess.
Among the myth’s variations, she was raped by Poseidon in Athena’s temple. Athena transformed Medusa into a monster whose gaze could turn people to stone. Athena’s motivations aren’t clear – perhaps misplaced anger at the defilement of the temple, or a strange jealousy.
In a positive interpretation, it may have been to give Medusa self-protective power to turn those that attacked her to stone.
We then consider that Athena helped Perseus chop off Medusa’s head, so it could be used for protection in battle to petrify their opponents.
The symbol of decapitation can be seen as losing one’s mind in a negative sense with mental illness, and of general misfortune. In a positive light, the loss of the head symbolises releasing the illusional lower mind.
The ancients said Algol represents the centre of Medusa’s head and her third eye, which is the terrain of the pineal gland as the gateway to higher consciousness.
In light of these understandings, Medusa’s story can represent our fall from Heaven into the hell of dense duality – from goddess to gorgon – then the ability to return again through the release of the lower mind and subsequent access to higher consciousness.
Protection
Medusa is known for her powers of protection, and in shadow she can use them in a retaliative way that’s hard as stone.
Actually, just like Lilith, Kali and other dark goddesses, she is pure love and her style is to slay all that is illusional and keeping us from the salve of ultimate truth.
The highest form of protection is this truth. We know we are one with all and thus no ‘separate to self’ threat can truly harm us. We carry a high level trust of self that brings security even from our own negative outputs.
In her evolved dark goddess energy, Medusa destroys illusion, so those projecting their fear upon her find she petrifies it. Her protective mechanism is the slaying of illusion, but in our egoic and unintegrated states, this seems like annihilation.
Blast for freedom
Algol sits at 26 degrees of Taurus for the long term, as fixed stars do not move much over time relative to the Earth.
If your natal chart has planets or points between 24 – 28 degrees of Taurus, you may feel deeply stirred by the stories of Medusa and/or Lilith. These points are stimulated every year from 15 – 19 May when the sun passes Algol.
This year is exceptionally stimulating, as we have freedom-busting Uranus passing from May to August, peaking mid-July when it joins feisty Mars on Algol. This brings a radical and rebellious, unpredictable, and martial blast to our archetypal Medusa.
If used well this can bring liberating effects, as we can detect and eclipse what’s fear-based and replace it with more of our true state of unity and the higher expression of protection that comes of it.
While we are still in the process of unifying and Algol is prominent, it's wise to give extra focus to ‘keeping our heads’. We can watch our mental health or repetitive or obsessive thoughts keeping us in fearful, raging, sorrowful, or other expressions of separation consciousness.
The choice is there to refresh Algol’s reputation and see we can be offered blessings with its connection through the third eye and pineal gland to the realms of higher truth.
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