Wild Within, Wild Without
By
Sarah Varcas
As Juno journeys through Virgo she illuminates our commitment to Mother Earth who has sustained us across millennia. She reminds us how profoundly humanity has abused her loyalty, taking her riches for granted as she nurtures us, body and soul. In her travels through Virgo, Juno emphasises our dependence upon this breathtakingly beautiful planet and how we can more readily honour our ever devoted Mother.
In an alliance with Saturn, Juno reminds us that intimacy with ourselves fosters intimacy with nature, for the wild within and the wild without are born of the same essence. Although we watch a thunderstorm in awe of its power, we hesitate to acknowledge that same power inside. It feels risky and uncontrollable. Whilst we batten down the hatches and take cover in a storm, to do the same when the storm is ourselves fosters a growing disconnect with the primal forces that stir within: terror, rage, violent passions which threaten to tear our soul apart. Or so it seems. The outside world fosters denial of their presence and censors their expression. We learn we cannot risk ourselves to their dominion when in fact, far from being an aberration best denied, they simply mark us out as part of nature, doing what it does to survive.
This denial forges a dangerous path. If we fail to recognise, respect and honour our own wildness, we deny it elsewhere. Just as we are conditioned to tame and shame our wild nature, humanity seeks to suppress the natural world, forcing it to ‘behave’, to betray its own essence. The wild within is restrained in the same way as the wild without: through disconnection, suppression and fear. The more we deny our primal, unpredictable, messy essence – dampening passions, denying anger, suppressing grief – the more we must oppress that same essence in each other, the world at large and the very ecosystem upon which our survival depends.
Juno highlights the enduring connection between the inner and outer wild. The depths to which we honour our own wildness reflect the extent to which we can honour the unbridled power of nature in the raw. When we become so disconnected from our own essence that the pain of our planetary mother fails to penetrate our consciousness, we are already dead to the world. Asteroid Juno exhorts us to embrace Mother Earth and respond to her cries for help; to know her suffering as our own, not dismissing it as someone else’s problem to be solved another day.
Our beautiful planet and all who live upon her form one living, breathing organism, not separate beings in a survivalist fight to the death. Until we see ourselves in the eyes of an animal on the verge of extinction, of birds forced to leave their habitat due to the intensity of human activity, in polluted rivers and melting ice, we will continue to pit ourselves against nature, not meet ourselves within it. To do the latter we must know ourselves not as superior but equal, committed to a relationship which serves us all and ensures a sustainable future. We are born to this planet not to subdue but to embrace her, to commit to her survival and nurture her potential. We are her custodians and protectors, just as we are also her children, nourished and sheltered by her awesome and mighty hand.
Mother Earth provides all we need to survive. She is committed to us, has sustained us through millennia. We are born of her fertile abundance and consumed by her warm, dark soil at death. Juno’s shift into Virgo requires deep reflection on how we repay her loyalty and a commitment to explore where our own inner wild may have gone….
Sarah Varcas
