The Virgo-Pisces Axis – The Green Field of the Heart

An excerpt from my book “The Microcosmic Body – The Technology of the Heart” where each axis of opposing zodiac signs is given a chapter. This astrological approach is centered around the Lunar Nodes as it allows for an exploration of the full body of the Lunar Nodes, with the head and tail of the Dragon as a unified whole. The axis of the Lunar Nodes is ‘the image’ and the body of consciousness. The Lunar Nodes therefore naturally tell the story of body and soul in union, revealing movements within the microcosmic body. The axis of the Lunar Nodes ‘is’ the story.

5.1.1 Virgo-Pisces Axis – the Field of the Moon-Earth System and Faunus and the Continuum of Trees

I went looking for the ‘green’ within the zodiac, and found it in the Virgo-Pisces axis. The esoteric rulers of these two opposite zodiac signs, the Moon/Earth system and Faunus respectively, come together to clothe the microcosmic body in luscious foliage as one enters a supernatural yet natural realm. The contrast of Virgo and Pisces lies in the very ‘real’ natural quality of Earth and Moon and the ‘unreal’ supernatural quality of Faunus. When they combine, miracles happen. The Holy Spirit of the Green touches Mother Earth, and the immaculate conception of nature, reborn and evergreen, is sparked. It is a meeting of Faunus as the Green God and Moon/Earth as the Green Goddess.

The Virgo-Pisces axis seems to carry the imprint of Divine Mother and Divine Father, pigment and light, Soul and Spirit, Mother Earth and Father Space. Whether a leafy pigment green or a luminous green that appears when the Sun shines through a leaf, green tends to have a calming effect. Green is the central color in the color spectrum and connected to the Heart center. The wisdom of the Heart is a green kind of wisdom that allows one to see into something, without having knowledge on how it works. An innocent wisdom that perhaps has lost some ground within the current civilization. It is Faunus that holds our connection to this wisdom of the wild divine eternal child of nature within. Faunus brings Divine Father and Divine Child ever so close. The child is said to be close to Source, close to Heart, and the innocence of the child is represented by the Piscean ruler Faunus in its natural and connected aspect while the Virgoan ruler Moon/Earth carries the child close to her bosom, close to her heart.

5.1.1.1 The Mycelium-Mushroom Continuum and the Conundrum of Seeing both the Forest and the Trees

The panoramic image of the Virgo-Pisces axis resembles a continuum of trees expanding into the field of a forest, where the body of one tree relates to the Lunar bodily awareness of Virgo, while the invisible interconnectedness of a forest relates to the Faunian mystical awareness of Pisces. A forest can be a healing experience. A forest can be a dark and threatening experience. The duality of Faunus seems an integral part of the forest as the timeless immensity of an ancient forest will leave you in bliss from its all-pervading Love or gobble you up in its impenetrable darkness. What happens in the forest perhaps is a matter of a state of mind. What happens in the forest happens in a magical realm outside the conscious realm of civilization. Sometimes you will know how to move in the forest, perhaps there is a path, a river or an incline in the terrain. Sometimes the forestscape will seem to shift leading one astray into the darker parts of the unconscious.

We may draw a line between wilderness and civilization, but civilization emerges out of the forest. At the same time the life-embracing magic of the forest, entwined with the wisdom of the old growth, appears to have been cut off within the cityscape, perhaps reflecting the current state of our connection to Source. The Faunian spectrum of nature to culture, and technology as an extension to source, seems to have taken us to the very edge, an edge where connection is lost. Technology comes in many forms, sometimes disconnected from the Heart. But the Virgo-Pisces axis may awaken in us dormant memories of a Heart connected technology to be found within the microcosmic body and its natural origins. Faunus holds the potential for both scenarios, the connected and the disconnected, the natural and the artificial.

Another embodiment of the Virgo-Pisces axis can be found in the fungi kingdom, where the fruiting body or mushroom represents body, related to Virgo, while the hidden mycelial networks underground, that sometimes spread out for miles, relates to Pisces. Fungi are neither plant nor animal and the high strangeness of fungi makes them very Faunian in essence. A mushroom will sometimes magically materialize overnight displaying all kinds of dramatic shapes and processes that change their appearance in even stranger ways. With reference to the body/soul/spirit spectrum of the Virgo-Pisces axis, one could liken the mushroom to a rebirth, with the unseen mycelial network rebirthing itself above ground as fruiting bodies. The mycelium can last for hundreds or even thousands of years, and some fungi stay dormant for decades, awaking and asleeping, seen and unseen, as an image of Faunian dualization.

Fungi helps illustrate the story of the Virgo-Pisces axis and perhaps bring awareness to its hidden coherency. Further, invoking the image of restoration between Virgoan body/soul/nature and Piscean spirit, are the psychoactive compounds of mushrooms. Fungi have an ancient history of use within cultures that hold a shamanic worldview, as a link between the spirit world and the natural world, or the underlying field and the nature of form perceived in it, the essential meaning of the Pisces-Virgo continuum. And for those who are willing to look past the surface of disconnected worldly affairs, a current of re-awakening to the Virgo-Pisces axis in its natural and fullest expression, will be felt.

The Virgo-Pisces axis will however not find its natural expression in the plantations of trees that we often see replacing the natural forests. There may well be trees but the connected field of trees is no more and the magic of Faunus is lost. A forest is not a forest without the enspiritment of Faunus and its mycelial networks, just like a body is not fully ensouled without the connection to the light of Spirit. When you cut down an old-growth forest you not only lose the forest but also the path through the forest. As the paths traced by animals and humans of a more heart connected culture are replaced by the tracks of machinery on a completely different mission a question arises. With the Lunar Nodes as the path of Soul through the Faunian forest of Spirit that keeps you on the trail of light then one may wonder what these new tracks really are.

Within the microcosmic body the Hands are a testament to the Faunian principle of Spirit that touches everything. With Pisces as the keeper of the energy center of the Hands and Virgo as the keeper of the Heart center the Virgo-Pisces axis reveals the Hands as an extension of the Heart. And on the Earthly plane what is the Heart without the magical action of a Hand, any hand, and what good is the action of the Hand without a connection to a Heart, any heart.

Tree imagery in the archaeological record

The astrological markers for the image of the ’tree’ are the Black Moon and the Lunar Nodes (indicated by Saturn).

Bronze trees Sangxingdui pit No. 2

20 August to 30 September 1986

A sacrificial pit, excavated in Sangxingdui sometime between the 20th of August to September 1986. Containing 800 pieces, mostly bronze, gold, jade and ivory, one object category being the ritual bronze tree.

Bronze tree Sangxingdui

13 April 2005

A ritual bronze tree excavated at the Sangxingdui site in Guanghan, Sichuan Province, China.

Bronze tree Sangxingdui pit No. 3

March 2020

Sacrificial pit No. 3 was discovered November 2019 and a bronze tree was unearthed in March 2020.

Engraved Sacred Tree on Bronze Beast Sangxingdui

July 2021

A bronze mythical beast or dragon, unearthed from sacrificial pit No. 8 in Sangxingdui. The beast has an engraving of the sacred tree on its chest.

Bronze tree Jiangdongzui

October 1997

A bronze ‘spirit tree’, from the Han dynasty, was looted from a burial at Jiangdongzui in Wushan County, Sichuan province, China. Its base has two dragons, and its branches hold numerous mythological ‘feng’ birds.

Stela 5 Izapa

October 1939

April 1941

A carved stone found in the temple courts at the ancient ruin of Izapa, Mexico. It depicts a tree, identified as the world tree and shows the Mesoamerican creation myth. Some sources say the stone was found in October 1939, others say April 1941. This would give it either a Saturn or a Black Moon chart signature.

Seahenge Holme I

Summer 1998

October 1998 (excavation begins)

Seahenge is a prehistoric monument in the village of Holme-next-the-Sea, Norfolk, England. This timber circle, consisting of fifty-five oak trunks with an upturned tree root in its center, has been given several interpretations. Some interpretations focus on the inversion of the central tree stump, and its ritual function. The discovery is a bit vague. Early Spring 1998 a Bronze Age ax head was found on Holme beach. It is not clear when the first tree stump was discovered unearthed on the beach, some sources say Summer 1998. The excavation began in October the same year. What can be seen in the astrological charts is a Saturn alignment to the Nodes from June to November, which would reflect the interpretation of the site, if this were to be the ritualized image of a tree.

Deviating objects

Sarcophagus of Lord Pakal

15 June 1952

The sarcophagus of the Mayan ruler K’inich Janaab’ Pakal, found in the Temple of the Inscriptions in Palenque, Mexico, was covered with a carved stone lid. Its rich imagery is commonly described as having the world tree as a central theme. I have not been able to discern the astrological correspondence to the Tree in the chart of its discovery. There are, however, interpretations of the imagery that better reflects the Galactic Center-Algol-Sedna-Juno-Venus alignment of the chart. I will here only attempt to give a short description of the central elements of the imagery.

One interpretation (Linda Schele) suggests the tree-like cross to be a representation of the Milky Way. With a north-south orientation the Milky Way would form a cross with the elliptical path of the Sun. In Mayan cosmology the Milky Way was the path to the Otherworld. This interpretation aligns well with the Galactic Center signature of the astrological chart.

The cross shape has also been associated with a maize plant emerging from the depicted offering bowl indicating the rebirth of lord Pakal as the Maize God. Under the cross shape there is the gaping mouth of the underworld into which the figure of lord Pakal descends at his death, to then ascend into higher realms. The interpretations divide in whether Pakal is falling into or rising out of the underworld. His position and his infantile posture is said by some to denote a rebirth. Whether descending or ascending, his transitional state between worlds is a theme of Sedna and the ascension into heavenly realms would correspond with the Galactic Center. The bloodletting bowl under the figure of Pakal is aligned with Sednas correspondence to sacrifice.

On top of the cross sits a bird, identified as Itzam Ye, embodying the life-generating power in the living fluids of the world, very much a reflection of the Galactic Center and Juno alignment, and their connection to the Crown Center and the Bindu in the microcosmic body, the source of the divine nectar and the point from where nectar drips down.

The double-headed snake in the middle of the cross has been described as a ‘vision serpent’, forming a portal between worlds, here presumably placed like a gate at the ecliptic where lord Pakal will cross into the higher realms of the Milky Way as a deified ancestor; the Maize God. In the astrological chart this is reflected in Junos connection to both the snake and to gateways.

On the side panels of the sarcophagus Pakals ancestors are depicted as plants sprouting from the earth, mostly domesticated fruiting trees. This reminds of the ancestral realm and the inherited cultivated landscape as an expression of Sedna.

Discovery Charts