The Burning Heart of Vesta

In keeping with Neil Gaiman’s directive to “Make Good Art” being reinforced in my life by multiple astrological configurations, I’ve been endeavoring to finish more of my growing quantity of “works in progress,” one of which is this drawing based on the action of the asteroid Vesta on my natal chart through transits and synastry over the past year.

Vesta is one of the larger asteroids in our solar system, smaller than Ceres, but comparable in size to the dwarf planets Ixion and Varuna. In the Roman pantheon, she is the goddess of hearth and home, whose worship is remembered today primarily for the Vestal Virgins who guarded her eternal flame. In astrology, Vesta represents our focus, that which we hold sacred and what we will dedicate ourselves to. Since my own natal Vesta is retrograde in Leo in the 11th house, my focus is creative self-expression, preferably in service to individual development that furthers the evolution of humanity as a whole (Aquarian goals represented by the 11th house), but it can take longer for me to get there due to the retrograde motion, mostly because I have to think about it more. :/ Vesta can also show where we need to withdraw on occasion, in order to refuel our fires. In my case, that 11th house placement requires that I periodically withdraw from my friends and social activities so that I may rest and recharge (often through the act of artistic creation). For the astro-geeks out there, my natal Vesta is also the point of a focused Yod with my Sun/Mercury retrograde in Capricorn and my Mars in Pisces all exerting pressure on Vesta through inconjunct aspects, and Ceres in opposition to Vesta providing the metaphysical pressure valve. All of which adds up to a lot of attention on Vesta.

This specific drawing may seem like an awfully chilly invocation of Vesta, but it is essentially indicative of the hope of spiritual renewal through Vestal focus in the midst of a “dark night of the soul” when the seeker feels blind and lost. The emblem being painted in the seeker’s heart’s blood is the astrological emblem for Vesta.

This drawing contains a recurring visual theme in my art, that of the sacred heart. I was raised with a syncretic mixture of Catholicism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, with icons and statuary from all three religions placed prominently throughout our home. I was introduced to the concept of Pantheism as soon as I was old enough to read via a children’s book called “God is Everywhere,” and read world folklore and mythology voraciously from a very early age, so that I always looked upon each new pantheon that I encountered as being both real and worthy of my respect, whether or not I chose to worship any of its members. This extended so far that at the age of around 8 or 9 I was direly offended by a teacher who claimed that mythology was “stories once used to explain how the world works that are untrue.” My hand promptly shot up and I offended the teacher right back by saying “why do you say the Greek and Egyptian gods are mythology but not Jesus?” Keep in mind that I regularly attended church and Sunday school, sometimes switching denominations from week to week depending on which schoolmate was trying to convert me. I engaged in Bible study mostly because I thought it was fun – it appealed to the occult geek in me almost as much as astrological study does now – so I really wasn’t particularly interested in being disrespectful to Jeheshua Emmanuel or Yahweh, but I wasn’t going to cotton to any disrespect toward Isis or Zeus or Thor either. I finally stopped attending the local Lutheran church when they started bad-mouthing other religions (the Mormons, in particular), right around the same time that I realized that they weren’t too keen on my saying the rosary or believing in faeries either. But I digress…

Most of my artwork is based on spiritual and psychological exploration, and contains symbols and imagery from mythology, folklore, iconography, mandalas, yantras, astrology, tarot, runes, oghams, I-Ching hexagrams, numerology, sacred geometry, dreams, totems, and so forth in varying amounts. Sacred heart imagery figures prominently in much of it, mostly because I view the sacred heart symbol as a means of expressing the feeling of being split open to discover a deeper truth, and all of the myriad pains, trials, and passions that our hearts are subject to. I don’t tend to link it to any one deity, saint, or spiritual path over any other – it is far more personal than that, much like each individual’s experience of the divine.

The real question posed by Vesta is the question our most crucial life decisions turn on: What does your heart burn for?