The present sky shows a rare alignment of word and desire. Descending into the mutable earth of Virgo, Venus is embraced by Mercury, who also has just stepped into Libra. What seems a simple exchange of regencies reveals itself as a deeper alchemy. It is the figure of the Rebis, the androgynous child of Hermes and Aphrodite, where speech coils around longing and beauty wears the wings of reason.
Venus is currently in her fall, but this is a ritual descent, the kathodos of the goddess who strips herself before the temple of service. Virgo is a feminine and nocturnal sign and Venus herself is the benefic of the nocturnal sect, so there is sympathy between planet and sign despite the fall. By triplicity, Venus holds diurnal rulership over the earth signs, a paradox that adds tension, since her nocturnal essence moves through a domain that grants her dignity in the day. This refines her power rather than denying it.
Mercury has entered Libra, where he is peregrine, neiter its house nor his exaltation. And Mercury rules the triplicity of air at night. Although the planet has no fixed sect, being by nature ambivalent and psychopompic, he still takes the nocturnal share of air, which allows him to act with familiarity in Libra. It is the place of the scales, of judgement and proportion, and Mercury there becomes the tongue that weighs and measures with balance.
At this moment both planets are also in the first decan of these signs, which deepens the bond, since Venus treads mercurial ground in Virgo, whilst Mercury steps into venusian ground in Libra. Each enters the robe of the other, and the heavens pronounce a secret alchemical, hermaphrodite marriage.
I. The Descent of Venus
In Virgo, Venus is a servant queen. The sixth sign is the Misfortune house of toil and affliction. The beauty of Venus is refined, since desire becomes offering and attraction becomes the September separation of wheat from chaff. This is the liturgy of the goddess in her fall, the harvest stripped of excess, the loaf broken for the altar.
In the first decan, the influence is profoundly mercurial, so her steps follow the path of analysis and discernment. The angelic guardians Lecabel and Vasariah preside over this period, Spirits of the order of the Dominions under Jupiter, whose work is the governance of abundance through measure and law.
They hold the staff of kabbalistic Chesed, the sphere of mercy and justice, and they clothe the descent of Venus with a higher harmony. Aphrodite’s fall is a stripping down that reveals the naked geometry of love.
II. The Weighing of Mercury
As Venus bends to earth, Mercury crosses the gate of Libra. He is peregrine here. Libra is the cardinal air of judgement, where the Logos is held against the balance of the Other in the Descendant. Mercury is also in the first decan right now, where the angelic forces Aniel and Haamiah stand, part of the Powers of Geburah. Their nature is martial, purifying by severity, their gift the clarity of a cutting, shar+ sword that divides the righteous from the false.
Mercury in Libra speaks now with the tongue of fire, but clothed in grace. His words are contracts sealed with wax and his silence is as sharp as iron. He carries the power of Venus, since both the sign and the first decan is hers. The androgyny is exact: the lord of calculation Mercury speaks through the lips of the goddess; the lady of attraction Venus moves under the law of Mercury. The mirror is turned both ways.
III. The Path of the Serpent
Between Chesed and Geburah, between the Dominions of Jupiter and the Powers of Mars, we encounter in the Tree of Life the path of Tet, the current of the serpent. It is the line that horizontally binds mercy to severity. In the Tarot this is the Strength, the arcanum of the woman who subdues the lion through Spirit rather than arm. But what unfolds now in the heavens is more than force: it is the appearance of the Rebis, the alchemical child of Hermes and Aphrodite, whose myth was once sung as Hermaphroditus.
The Rebis is the sigil of union, born when the swift god of speech entwined with the goddess of desire. The male and female are sealed together, each holding the form of the other. This is the figure now mirrored in the sky. Aphrodite in Virgo takes the Mercurial role of order and measure. Hermes in Libra bears the Venusian edge of truth and balance.
The myth of Hermaphroditus told of the nymph Salmacis who joined herself irrevocably with the child of Hermes and Aphrodite and from their embrace came a single body, double in sex and Spirit. The sky now repeats the myth in higher form: desire and word entwine, and beauty and intelligence merge. It is the sacrament of the double one, the androgynous Divine seal. The heavens pronounce it as a secret hierogamic marriage, with Logos clothed in beauty, and Eros spoken into form.
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