The Leo theme discusses the new role of women, and the emerging archetype of the New Queen. One movie that shows the transition from Father's Daughter to New Queen is Dirty Dancing.

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The emerging archetypal theme I've worked with this month is the journey of Individuation, the Leo initiation of becoming conscious of your original Self.   Due to the critical issues facing our world, individuation is the most important task any of us can undertake this lifetime.  

Many spiritual people believe that we are at a moment of conscious evolution, and we are living in the moment of choice.   The only way to make a real choice is by living our essential truth, through being connected to what Carl Jung called the Self.   That's what our movie heroine does.

The spotlight is on the new Queen for this Leo month because it is the Feminine Spirit that leads us to transformation and individuation. At the turn of the Ages, the Goddess returns to rebirth the world.   She is here, now!   And the truth is, women have led the way in the search for an authentic Self, partly because we've never been this free to understand ourselves before and partly because we make second-class men!  

In a world understood and shaped by male perceptions, women have had to run away from those masculine perceptions to find that Self.   But all of us have a feeling nature, a feminine side that wants to leave the old rules behind and find our own standpoint.   Our emotions as well as our beliefs shape our choices.   If they are left unconscious, we are easily led; when understood and acted upon, we are free.    

Leo is the sign of the King and Queen and ruled by the Sun, an ancient symbol of the Center.   The Lion's gift to all of us is this search for individuation, for the ability to express who we are fully, with joy, pride and dignity.   The path of individuation leads inward to those feminine aspects of life which help us achieve transformation and inner freedom.   The truth is that outer freedom is an illusion unless you first achieve inner freedom.   

Both Leo and the Sun are apt symbols for our powers of self-awareness and generative creativity.   If we are in any way like the gods, it is because we are also creative.

The Sun's light is an ancient image of spiritual enlightenment, taking this exuberant energy even deeper.   So you see, Leo isn't only about fun, applause and power.   Leo's fixed nature can take the fire of creativity/destruction and ground and center it, stabilizing and sustaining the fire for the benefit of life.  

When women claimed our freedom in the 60s, we claimed it with our bodies as well as our minds and hearts.   Many of us threw off the shackles of patriarchal expectations and went exploring, and others met those expectations by entering the work world or staying home with their children.   But all of us were Father's Daughters, women committed to the masculine ideals of patriarchy/capitalism.   Education in hand, we thought we were quite capable of handling life. 

Well, life more often handled us, but though we were often disillusioned and sometimes hurt, we learned from our experiences and built on that new knowledge.   Many of us left the Father's House of patriarchal expectations and became conscious women.

For the most part, women have been denied Leo's gift for millennia, subjugated to the rules of a society that devalued women and offered few opportunities for freedom of expression.   I love the cosmic synchronicity that it is the Pluto in Leo women -- the Baby Boomers -- who first experienced this freedom on a large scale.  

Women want to find out who we are as opposed to just living as who we're told to be.   The Archetypal Feminine energy is abroad once more, the Goddess has returned and her daughters are transforming the world with their freedom.  

As we incarnate this renewed archetypal energy, we each exemplify an aspect of the New Queen.   Being a Queen is being a female leader; being a Queen is embodying the emotional rhythms of life.   I wrote about such a new queen in the Aries blog about the movie Whale Rider.   The movie speaks of the shift of leadership from masculine to feminine if we want renewal of life.

An ancient function of the queen and king was to serve as mediators between heaven and earth, man and woman, god and goddess.   They represented the gods to their people, and their people to the gods.   They were spiritually conscious people and they were leaders of their people.    Isn't it time again for wise leaders?

In a democracy, we are all called to become queens and kings.   We're supposed to contribute our creativity to the world.   That's what makes us whole, personally and collectively.   It's not enough to create for our own sakes; we want to share our creativity with the world.   We want to make a difference when Leo is strong in us.

But first women have to leave the Father's House and move beyond the patriarchal rules in their souls.   I'm not talking about rebellion, although that's often a first step.   Or being sexually free, which isn't the same as sexually whole. Women need to take the best and brightest of what we've learned from our "fathers' and leave all the rules behind and find our own rules, based on our values, understanding and love.

The first step is to return to our bodies, not just with sexual freedom but with understanding and love.   We need to discover our own courage, strength, truth, beauty, love, imagination, intelligence, power and mystery.    Happily, we've been left stories and fairy tales to show us how to do this.

Fairy tales seem to be the bare bones of the primal archetypes of life.  Stories passed down through the ages help us get through the transitions in life.   One big transition that's been brewing for centuries is this women's journey from the Father's House to freedom.   There is an old story that tells the tale of a princess who fled the father's house and gained her freedom and deep wisdom through day-long toil and a strong dose of patience.   Freedom from oppression is never free!

The tale gives us clues to achieving our quest for a conscious feminine standpoint to base our purpose on.   The basic pattern is set.   How we fill it in is up to us.   The Grimm fairy tale is called Allerleirauh and the movie that fleshed out this archetypal pattern is Dirty Dancing.

Continued at The Bard's Grove

Hrana Janto offers beautiful photo-quality art prints of the image of Sekhmet shown here, as well as her other goddess images, at her website, http://www.hranajanto.com.

Authors Website: http://www.cathypagano.com

Authors Bio:

Cathy Pagano is a spiritual advisor and Jungian psychotherapist, storyteller, author and teacher.

She is the author of a book on the return of the Goddess, "Wisdom's Daughters: How Women Can Change the World".

Cathy trained at the C. G. Jung Institut-Zurich in dream interpretation, has an M.A. in Counseling Psychology in Feminine Spirituality, and is a certified Life Coach.

As an astrologer and storyteller, she weaves the Cosmic Stories written in the stars. From The Bard's Grove, she writes about emerging archetypal themes in movies and books.

Cathy works with the tools of the imagination - dreams, alchemy, myths, astrology, symbolic language, storytelling, ritual - to awaken the Soul's wisdom.



I believe that Americans are called to a higher consciousness at this point in our history. We are called on to live up to our ideals and create the country our forefathers imagined. Inner consciousness needs to be acted upon for social justice.



Cathy believes that our writers and artists must take up our responsibility to create art that inspires, teaches and heals our humanity.



Cathy writes about political, psychological/spiritual, and cultural issues.