There’s a sacred mystery in the summer sky this week when, on Thursday, the crescent Moon rises just before morning twilight in the company of Pleiades, the most storied about group of stars in the sky, often referred to as the Seven Sisters, where they’re clustered at the shoulder of the bull in the constellation Taurus.
The Pleiades were known in many ancient cultures as “the begetters,” beginning all things, and doing so with sweet influences, according to the Book of Job.
In the Orient, the Pleiades were likened to an opening rose, like the soul of the human being, unfurling petal-by-petal atop its thorny stem, which is like the physical body, to offer itself, ultimately, to its eternal nature, that of the spirit.
When the bending sickle of the Moon passes Pleiades, there can be a heightened sense of this three-fold nature, not only of the rose and stars, but of the human being, as a being most sweetly expressed in the fullness of its creation ~ as a being of body, of soul, and of spirit.
On Thursday morning, then, the crescent Moon will unfurl the rosy petals of the Pleiades in the pre-dawn light. This is like a call to the human being to surrender to the same, to open, like the rose, from the stem of the body, aware of the flowering soul, and striving toward the starry spirit.
Here’s The Rose, by Christina Rossetti:
The lily has a smooth stalk,Will never hurt your hand;But the rose upon her brierIs lady of the land.
There’s sweetness in an apple tree,And profit in the corn;But lady of all beautyIs a rose upon a thorn.
When with moss and honeyShe tips her bending brier,And half unfolds her glowing heart,She sets the world on fire.
