The first New Moon of autumn comes on Wednesday this week. It will be on that part of the Moon’s orbital path that takes it furthest away from us, which is called its apogee. The Moon becomes visible as a waxing crescent a few evenings later, and on Saturday, it joins Venus in the region of Libra stars ~ and here’s where all the story is.
Venus is the brightest object in our sky after Sun and Moon, and in Libra, she adorns the western edge of the world from the region of stars over which, as goddess of love and beauty, she has dominion. This Friday and Saturday, Venus will move really close to the brightest star in Libra, the alpha star that has the delightful name Zubenelgenubi.
This star marks the southern tray of the Libra scales, which I like to think is weighted down because it’s filled with gold. In ancient Egyptian tradition, Osiris was God of the Dead. Though he was a Sun divinity, he departed from the Earth with the Moon and worked upon the Earth from there. Part of his work included weighing souls as they traveled to the afterlife. But it wasn’t the soul’s claim of purity that won him over, it was the weight of the soul’s heart that mattered.
The heart of the soul was handed to Osiris, who placed it on a great golden scale balanced against the white feather of truth.
This week it’s Venus that stands in the golden scale. Venus, who as goddess of love and beauty looks deeply into the heart of the human being, a witness to the measure of love that abides there. May the Moon multiply your love as it slips by Venus at Zubenelgenubi this weekend.
