The Way of Sacrifice

The inte­gral unfold­ment of the Uni­ver­sal Ener­gies, what you know as the Signs of the Zodi­ac, form a com­plex Melody of Life, the Song of Spir­it that is the Love-filled Heart­beat of Spir­i­tu­al Awak­en­ing for you and your world. The ser­i­al order­ing of the One Ener­gy, Love, is divid­ed into these Twelve Man­sions of Life. The One Spir­it is mod­u­lat­ed through Four Modes of Being, Fire, Earth, Air and Water; and each of these is appor­tioned into three Modal­i­ties of Activ­i­ty, Car­di­nal, Fixed and Muta­ble. These Four formed by Three, this Three­fold Beat of the Four Fun­da­men­tal Ener­gy-Forms, togeth­er res­onate as the Heart of your Uni­verse, each Ele­ment brought into focus through the three phas­es of Spirit:

Cre­ation — Preser­va­tion — Transformation

For the Three, first come the Ini­tia­tors, the Car­di­nal Signs, (Aries, Can­cer, Libra and Capri­corn); then fol­low the Hold­ers, the Fixed Signs, (Tau­rus, Leo, Scor­pio and Aquar­ius); and final­ly, you move through the Signs of Tran­si­tion or Muta­bil­i­ty, (Gem­i­ni, Vir­go, Sagit­tar­ius and Pisces).

Of course, you must know and under­stand, at every moment in the ever-unfold­ing Life of the One Spir­it, in every moment of the Eter­nal or “The Now”, that all these Twelve Ener­gy-Forms are active in every speck and mote of cre­ation rang­ing on up through all the orders of beings and life-forms that fill the star­ry firmament.

But today, here on our Earth, let us acknowl­edge and cel­e­brate a change in our spe­cial cor­ner of Space. Today you move into the Sacred Realm that is Vir­go, and you have arrived at anoth­er lumi­nous moment of your awak­en­ing. Vir­go is here to help bring you to a more Inte­gral bal­ance with­in your Sacred Tem­ple of Body and Heart, of Mind and Spirit.

For you are here for one thing only, you are here to learn how to become a bet­ter human being. You are here quite sim­ply to Grow. And to do this, since you “as Human” have become self-aware, you must ever strive to con­scious­ly stay upon the path of Right­eous­ness, to keep to the Noble Road of Sac­ri­fice formed by Inte­gra­tion, Adjust­ment and Healing.

You have come once more through the realm of Fire that is Leo, whose space is there to pro­vide the expe­ri­ences by which you reveal and shine as “you”. In Can­cer you met the Self at the Cen­ter, and you anchored your­self in the Waters of your Roots. You drew upon this inspi­ra­tion to bring forth in Leo some greater part of that truth of you; in Leo you strove to shine and release your Self through var­i­ous vehi­cles of self-real­iza­tion, to find a more per­fect role, to act upon a truer stage in the grand the­ater that is Life.

But after every performance…there comes “the review”. Yes, you did reach beyond what you were before in the lat­est “per­for­mance”. But you will always feel, (you must know this by now), that you could have done bet­ter, that you could have been a bet­ter you.

By Vir­go, (and we all have Vir­go some­where in our own chart), you are offered the gift of Dis­cern­ment and Dis­crim­i­na­tion. This Crit­i­cal Fac­ul­ty is pre­cise­ly what you need to sep­a­rate the wheat from the chaff of your life. You must begin to take in your har­vest now, and so pre­pare your­self for the chal­lenges that lie before you, and the longer nights that lie ahead.

You can only grow by tri­al and error, through striv­ing to do bet­ter and by learn­ing from your mis­takes. Fail­ure and Growth are insep­a­ra­ble; you are here to learn what not to do and how you might become bet­ter. By self-cor­rec­tion and adjust­ment, through humil­i­ty and ser­vice, you will slow­ly but sure­ly lift your­self and one anoth­er a lit­tle clos­er to the ful­fill­ment of your des­tiny. You will move away from being unable, to becom­ing ever more capa­ble and ulti­mate­ly you will be known as an adept; you move from the ordi­nary to the extra­or­di­nary, from being reac­tive to being mas­ter­ful and pur­pose­ful. This is your path­way to per­fec­tion; and this is the Gift of Virgo.

You are an appren­tice work­ing on your great­est masterpiece…you. You will need teach­ers and mas­ters to show you “the way”. The most sacred of these is your own high­er self, who elic­its the ele­va­tion of your under­stand­ing through your intu­ition­al fac­ul­ty. Lis­ten to this lov­ing, kind and gen­tle voice and you will remain on the path. But also know that each and every encounter you have in your dai­ly life, whether with fam­i­ly or with friends, with col­leagues and most impor­tant­ly with those you think of as a stranger, all of these will also serve you (as you will equal­ly serve them). For it is by these exchanges with one anoth­er that you are helped to pol­ish away the mis­un­der­stand­ings that lead you into error. We are here to be a light to one anoth­er, and by reveal­ing what is right and what is wrong we can help one anoth­er to move towards a greater wholeness.

As you may out­ward­ly or for­mal­ly at some point be brought to study with a mas­ter, you may then nec­es­sar­i­ly find that you will be called upon to extend your­self to those who look to you. Yes, you the appren­tice will become a Mas­ter too. Offer them what you can, but most impor­tant­ly offer your­self with love, give what you will with kind­li­ness, guid­ance and encour­age­ment. This is also “the way”; it is the Rib­bon of Life and Love, the Hier­ar­chy of Com­pas­sion that stretch­es through all the King­doms of Life-Consciousness-Spirit.

We are here to become what we have with­in us, the Love of the One which is our true Heart and our abid­ing strength. We are here to become com­plete human beings like the “great souls” who have walked this same path that you fol­low today: Con­fu­cius, Krish­na, Zoroast­er, Pythago­ras, Bud­dha, Christ, and so many more who labored in the shad­ows and who serve with­out recog­ni­tion nor seek it. Their sto­ry is repeat­ed now so that we may remem­ber and learn. Their exam­ple and teach­ings are there to remind you that there is a pur­pose to your life, and it is to become awakened.

You are here to learn to be a bet­ter human. You are here to live, love and fol­low the Noble Mid­dle Path, “The Way of Ser­vice and Sac­ri­fice”. This path flows from your inner­most sanc­tum to the Heart of the Uni­verse, and beyond. It is quite sim­ply your true nature, it is Love.

Yes, it is in Vir­go that you let go and you grow. To be in the realm of Vir­go, to be Vir­ginal, means to make your­self whole, not per­fect. You must con­tin­u­al­ly, every day and life after life, give up the less­er and dis­cov­er and so become the greater with­in and between you. This is done by Sac­ri­fice. True Sac­ri­fice means you make your life and your actions Sacred, it means you give up the less­er as you align your­self with the greater with­in and around you. You are at peace, you are one, and you are one with one and All.

What you are made of is Love and what sur­rounds you is Beau­ty. To be who you are, to become what you are here to be is your des­tiny. So, fol­low the sacred prayer, fol­low the path of whole­ness and love, and repeat the sacred injunc­tion of the Red Road of Truth:

As I walk, as I walk

The Uni­verse is walk­ing with me

In beau­ty it walks before me

In beau­ty it walks behind me

In beau­ty it walks below me

In beau­ty it walks above me

Beau­ty is on every side

As I walk, I walk with Beauty.