The most gentle of the Olympian goddesses in the classical Greek world was Leto, partner to Zeus before he joined with the goddess Hera, but Hera was deeply jealous, so though Leto got pregnant before Hera came along, Hera still hunted her over the whole world so Leto could find no place to deliver her twins, Apollo and Artemis, Sun and Moon.
A deep teaching about evolution lives in this myth, if we can allow that Leto is the Earth body and Zeus is the ‘hidden god,” or the “fructifying cosmos.” Their union results in a birth, or a separating out of the bodies of Sun (Apollo) and Moon (Artemis), from the Earth (Leto), but it wasn’t so easy.
After wandering the whole Earth, Leto eventually came to the rocky island of Delos, which is related another of Zeus’ escapades with Leto’s sister, Asteria ~ a name which means “starry one.”
So in order to give birth to Sun and Moon, Leto had to travel the whole world and come to rest with her sister, the starry one. It’s such a beautiful picture of a planetary system becoming, and it’s uniquely related to what’s happening in the sky right now.
The Sun, the Moon, and Jupiter (aka Zeus) are all lined up with each other on one side of the Earth, in the region of Gemini, especially Tuesday and Wednesday, while the Earth is at its seasonal outbreath or exhale, releasing all its forces like a blossoming flower up and out to the cosmos. If we imagined ourselves on the Sun right now looking earthward, we would see that, because Sun, Moon, and Jupiter are in Gemini, the Earth appears opposite, in front of the region of Sagittarius, where it leans into the Milky Way ~ this is a starry place, or, in keeping with our myth, the island dwelling of Asteria, the starry one. Gemini is the twins, Sagittarius appears among the thickest region of Milky Way stars.
The story goes on. Even though Leto finally found a place to give birth to her twins, Hera further complicated matters by delaying the arrival of the goddess of childbirth for nine days! This goddess eventually came, some say from the northern lands of the Hyperboreans, and this at the behest of Iris, the heavenly messenger who weaves the rainbow and the golden threads of human destiny. It was said of Iris that if the gods needed to send you a message she would take the form of someone you know to deliver it.
So Iris brings the goddess of childbirth to Leto, whom we’re imaging as the Earth body, so she can give birth to Apollo and Artemis, the twins Sun and Moon, and this from the starry place of her sister, Asteria.
And on Tuesday into Wednesday this week, Sun meets Jupiter, then Moon sweeps together with them, arriving at New Phase on Wednesday, just as the Sun is rising.
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
