Medusa is a popular figure, especially for black women, but I found it unusual how often her name or symbols were popping up on social media lately. There’s something about the energy I couldn’t quite put my finger on – until I realized that Medusa has been conjunct Neptune since the Spring Equinox. (Since this is connected to the equinox, this astrology post will be using the tropical system.)
Given the recent spring equinox transits (Aries energy) and the upcoming full moon (Libra) and Medusa/Neptune in Pisces – I wonder if people are identifying with Medusa’s vulnerability and projecting a need for protection or retribution. Who is Medusa without the people who pushed her life around like a chess piece? What is her identity? This theme belongs to the Aries-Libra axis.
Who was Medusa before? We know that being turned into a monster gave her the ability to turn people to stone with just a gaze. But what about her power to heal with her blood? It’s not clear if that ability was given to her too, but I think that’s a strange power for a so-called monster to have. In fact, it reminds me of Jesus, whose blood was known to cleanse people of sickness and sin. I see Jesus as an immensely powerful healer – I bring this comparison up as a theory that Medusa was also a powerful healer even before her contact with Poseidon.
Even before her transformation, Medusa was already exceptional. Exceptional enough to stir envy in a goddess. I don’t believe Medusa was ever a “normal” human to begin with. Even though the gods and a few mortals apparently tampered with her fate, it doesn’t change who she always was – so incomprehensibly powerful that she had gods shaking in their boots. Because of the way the story is told, it’s hard to decipher that. She always had an identity outside of that which the gods forced on her.
With Medusa being conjunct Neptune in Pisces, its sign of modern co-rulership, I think illusions matter a lot in this transit. And what better symbol of illusions than a mirror – also iconography belonging to Medusa. Medusa’s face is put on a shield for protection, simulating a mirror with her face on it. An illusion. Her gaze was said to turn people to stone, b
I feel people who identify with Medusa’s energy, whether they admire her or she is one of their guides, are currently collectively putting their/her face on a shield. It is protective, but its protection lies in its function, not Medusa’s face. It’s not real. It’s almost like a glamor, if the point was to conceal power. But for many, it’s not. It’s a denial of their own power. Medusa’s true power is more powerful than any shield. Medusa’s children share her power – we don’t need shields. We don’t need to put a wall up to keep people out because we’re already protected.
Considering the Medusa-Neptune conjunction, let’s not forget that Poseidon (whom the Romans called Neptune) was involved in the circumstances of her excommunication. She was punished for consorting with him. In my previous post, I wrote about how this was interpreted as a rape because she was consorting with Poseidon – a primordial nature god. Unlike Zeus, the god of the sky known to consort with mortals, Poseidon represents the ocean – the hidden, the ancient, the womb of the earth. To me, whatever Medusa experienced with Poseidon represents her obtaining esoteric, even forbidden knowledge from the Greek perspective. This is in line with what the planet Neptune represents in astrology.
I think the Medusa-Neptune transit represents obtaining and attempting to integrate hidden parts of yourself. The “scary” parts of you are your magic. You don’t need to hide behind a shield that is actually a weak imitation of you. People’s inability to handle the real you is not your problem.
And in the cases when it is, be ready to fight. If you don’t understand the cards you were dealt are not a curse, you run the risk of giving away your enemies your most powerful cards.
From an astrological perspective, Medusa’s children who are most affected may have (using tropical astrology):
