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The Year Cycle in the Stars: This week on the Storyteller's Night Sky

More than half of the Summer has now passed,  and there’s a deep mystery that presents itself each year at this time.

We’re just about seven weeks from Summer Solstice,  and in the cycle of the plant kingdom, now is the time when we can tell whether the blossoms that were offered up to the Sun at its highest hour were well-received. We can tell this in the nature of the harvest.

If we apply this same rhythm to the cycle of inner growth and becoming in the human being, then we could say that Summer Solstice was like a conception, and now, seven weeks later, we have moved through the first few weeks of the “organogenesis”, the period of time during which the major organs begin to develop in the human embryo. Only, I’m not talking about a literal pregnancy, but about being pregnant with the cycle of the year. And it’s here, in mid-August, when we can first begin to sense this cycle in a clear way, as though the heartbeat of our own becoming is now evident.

The Sun is no longer as high above the horizon as it was at Solstice, and the starry crown that adorned the night at that time is also gradually sloping toward the west. The dragon Draco continues to coil about the North Star, as though quietly watching the activity of his kin, the water serpent Hydra, that rises up from the deeps and slithers low along the horizon all summer long. 

In the west, the maiden Virgo lies asleep along the ecliptic, bearing the star of abundance in her arms, Spica. And in some traditions on the Earth, there is a celebration of the Divine Feminine, right here during this week, as if to say to the human soul: “I have cast my mantle of stars about you, so that you may feel protected in the dawning awareness of your becoming”. 

According to the stars, this is the week for listening to the heart beat of the world through the rhythm of our own days, as the sunlight gently wanes, the stars rise and fall, and the world rolls on toward eclipse.