Devotion to Divinity
By
Sarah Varcas
Asteroid Vesta raises matters of service and commitment, sister/brotherhood and devotion to a cause. She upholds the purity of spiritual practice even as she engages with it in the mundanity of everyday life. As goddess of the hearth, she reminds us the sacred lives at the very heart of the everyday, just as the fire which warms our home is symbolic of the divine spark within each and every one of us. It needs to be nurtured with as much care as the flame upon which we are dependent for warmth and light in a cold Winter.
In Aquarius, Vesta reminds us this flame is shared with all things everywhere. When we tend our own we tend everybody’s. The Vestal Virgins, daughters of Vesta, guarded the temple flame to ensure it never went out. They did this as a service to the community and were given a sacred place within it. They held office for thirty years which corresponds with a full cycle of Saturn. As such, this commitment and duty to a sacred and transcendent practice typifies nicely the energies of the burgeoning Saturn/Neptune square. Vesta journeys through Aquarius to remind us no matter how isolated we may at times feel in the loneliness of our own problems, we share everything with all things, including our pain, and there is a source of support available to each and every one of us if we turn to the divine spark within and tend it with the love and care it deserves.
There are many ways to do this and they don’t have to be overtly ‘spiritual’ although they can be if that works for you! It’s not how we do it but that we do it that counts! For some a whispered prayer can bring them home to the inner light; for others attention to another’s needs can rekindle the sacred flame. Resting our gaze on a flower or a child, a work of art or our favourite meal lovingly prepared, can reconnect us with the wonder of life and the healing power of love and acceptance, lessening the familiar grapple with anxiety and frustration. For others there may be no let-up from the struggle and the flame must be tended amidst the chill wind of grief or depression, despair or fear. It may be nigh on impossible to sense even the tiniest glow from the embers. To all intents and purposes it may seem the fire has well and truly died and our spirit along with it. But this is an eternal flame which never dies, no matter how far removed we may feel from its warmth and light.
In the coming weeks we are each of us exhorted to tend this sacred flame which burns at our very centre, no matter our circumstances. The more we can remember to turn within and warm ourselves by the fire of the heart the more powerful we will become to effect change in the outer world. This flame feeds and nourishes us at the most fundamental level. It is the god/dess force within, the sacred spark of life, the meeting place of all things. Its warmth revives us, its light illuminates our path. We may want to visualise it burning within us. Its colour may change according to mood or emotion. At times it may be more vibrant than others, not because the divine changes but because we do and it merely reflects us back to ourselves within its own form. Like looking in a mirror, when we gaze into the sacred flame we see our own reflection staring back at us, but this time purified by the catalysing power of All That Is. We live in the flame as much as we gaze into it. We are it as much as we feel estranged from its light. It is simply ourselves and it is everything. We are mesmerised by its glory and aghast at its power, only to finally realise it is our glory and power looking back at us.
If the temple flame were allowed to go out it had to be relit from the light of the Sun. No other source would do. As Vesta enters Aquarius the Sun is in the same sign affirming that solar fire comes now through the collective unity of all creatures great and small. We neither own the fire nor are we excluded from it. We must all tend its spark in our own hearts to ensure it burns bright everywhere. And to see the flame within another, especially those with whom we find ourselves at odds, bestows the greatest blessing, burning through so much that divides and isolates.
Asteroid Vesta reminds us that just like Mother Earth we are aflame on the inside, molten at our core by the sacred fire within. It warms and illuminates, catalyses and purifies. We can take anything and everything inside to be engulfed by the flames. The more we can allow it to burn through our pain and struggle, our doubt and fear, insecurities and resistance, the more we can embody that flame, burning as brightly and living its transformative power in our own lives. There’s a reason the hearth is the centre of the home and the flame kept alight in the temple. It reminds us that fire is the very essence of who we are, the very source of existence itself. Without it we would be nothing and no one, frozen and lifeless. We must tend our inner flame with gratitude and, when possible, great joy, for it is the first cause of life itself, the primal spark that began it all. It burns within us just as it burns through space creating galaxies as it goes. We are keepers of that flame and entrusted with its care. A responsibility not to be side-stepped, a blessing not to be missed.
Sarah Varcas
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