The Tiger, the Sage, & the Heartsick Girl
On the beginning of a Venus Cycle
(Jan 8/9th @ 18º43' Capricorn)
There’s an old, nearly forgotten tale about a young girl with a broken heart who decides to seek help, and what she discovers is one of the scariest truths any of us could possibly encounter. It’s a story involving three characters: a girl, a sage, and a tiger. It goes like this:
It all began without Venus in the sky. She had disappeared in the West, and was rumored to appear soon enough in the East, but this had yet to be proven. Likely, she was traveling some Underworld not too different from our sweet, heartsick girl we meet in this story. The girl’s heart was broken-or, at least that is what we say. To her, it felt like it was shredded and tucked away in some deep, dank cave in the center of her being. She had lost her shine. She was closed off. The gold had been buried, and she didn’t trust anyone. She was lonely. In fact, she was so lonely, she believed that nobody would notice if she just disappeared off a cliff. So one day, she decided to get help. She went to visit a sage she heard lived in the middle of an immense forest.
When she finally arrived, after getting lost more times than she could count, and nearly freezing to death on the way, she greets the sage and says, “I need help. I’ve never felt so alone. I’m sad. I’m tortured. And all I want is love, but I’m terrified of it.” The sage nods and says he can help by making her a love potion. The catch: The potion needs a fresh whisker from a tiger, and only she can get it. Stunned, yet knowing deep in her soul that she was going to have to try, she agreed. The sage pointed into the forest to where she might find a tiger, and off she went.
Once arriving at the tiger’s den, she decided her approach would be to feed it and earn his trust. So the first night, she left out a bowl of meat at the edge of a clearing, and ran for cover; the next night, she brought the food a little closer; the nights after that, closer and closer still, until finally one night, when she was setting the food down, the tiger appeared, they met eyes, an eon passed in the surge of adrenaline, and the tiger lowered his head to eat the meat. And while he was, she snatched a whisker and ran full tilt back to the sage. The tiger winked.
When she finally delivers the whisker to the sage, he was quite impressed, and you could tell by the way he was inspecting the whisker by the light of the fire, the same fire he then dropped the whisker into where it instantly turned to flames. Outraged, the girl screamed at the sage, saying he had broken his promise. He just smiled and said, “My brave girl, you yourself have already made the potion. If you can face the fear of being eaten by a tiger, you can now face anything, including opening your heart once again.” The sage winked, and she gave an uneasy smile.
…it’s rumored that by the time Venus reached the Morning Sky, she met someone. She described him as an amalgam of all her previous lovers, with a touch of her father in there. They dove into Love so fast that she completely forgot she was ever heartsick. And now, every time one of her friends complains about their heart pain, she sends them to the forest, and doesn’t reveal any secrets. That’s a good friend.
___________
Soon, Venus will reach the heart of the Sun with Pluto close behind, and begin another cycle. Not dissimilar from the scene in the sky at the beginning of this story. Venus, the girl; Pluto, the tiger; The Sun, the sage. Now, whether we have the same issue as the girl in the story, and we can’t for the life of us open our hearts again because some bastard Scorpio thrashed our heart out in the past or we got lost in too many Piscean love voyages, we all have gold to be mined in our hearts. We all have stories. We all have trauma and unresolved pains. Each and every Venus cycle is a gorgeous opportunity to face the tiger, consult the sage, and realize the entire drama had been taking place inside all along. Whatever it is for you, don’t forget this opportunity. It’s once in a lifetime. Next time Venus starts her cycle in Capricorn, Pluto will have moved on.
May we all find the love that opens us and helps us discover that inner gold. May we cultivate the friendships as well that assist in this process, not ones that keep us blocked and stuck in the mud of our pain. We need friends to remind us of what is possible. We need friends who point us to the forest.
Eudaimonia,
Adam
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