Part Two:
Twelve Phases of Human Experience
VIRGO - Page 2 of 3

All of the preceding analysis deals with the factor of technique; and the student of astrology will have easily recognized in these statements the several characteristics which astrological text-books attribute on the basis of traditional authority to the zodiacal Sign Virgo: analysis, discrimination, criticism, routine of work, purity, self-integrity, care of the body, hygiene, training, etc. But Virgo offers also another answer to the seeker after self-perfection; to the thwarted, bruised and embittered soul who after rushing, in Leo, after emotional self-expression finds itself empty and brokenhearted; also to the parents whose progeny turned ungrateful, to the creative artist whose creations aroused no social response, to the leaders whose following deserted him.
      That answer of the Sphinx is: emotional repolarization. "What caused your emotional disillusionment and bitterness?" — asks the Sphinx. And, looking into the hollowed eyes of the stone-image which turn into mirrors reflecting our innermost depths, we realize at last that our emotional failures have been due mostly to our lack of "social sense." We have ignored the meaning of the Night-force, of that cosmic power which gathers-in all units into greater organisms and dispassionately, un-emotionally establishes complex patterns of relationship into which every thing may fit. We have insisted that our way of projecting our emotions was the only way; that we had the right to demand everything or nothing, the right to force our conditions upon life. And the Night-force turned destructive; we became lost in the dark and frightened by the broken echoes of our own desires.
      "Look at me" — says the Sphinx — "become like unto me. My lion-like passions are strong. I am a huge feline in whose groins ardent power lies. But my head is that of a virgin. I am still, waiting for that which must come. I behold the stars. I wait for my time, which is written. In me, there is no pride and no haste. In me, power and purity are polarized toward the fulfillment of purpose and destiny."
      The Night-force is the power of more-than-individual purpose. It is the womb of greater selfhood, of vaster life-organizations. It gathers-in the small selves in expectation of the Greater Self, which will come at the appointed time. The message of Virgo to the sufferers is therefore: "Look beyond yourself. Reorganize your desires, re-polarize your emotions, re-orient your impulses. Your energies are not yours; they are life's. You hold them in trust for humanity as a whole. Be sure they serve a purpose greater than your littleness, greater even than home and family. Consecrate them to the Greater Whole."
      Virgo is thus, in one of its aspects, the realm of devotion and spiritual discipleship. It is the realm of the individual's subservience to a collective purpose and a collective discipline; the realm of service and self-immolation, of willing sacrifices — that of the seed become bread to feed the hungry one. It is the realm of the Army, because through the discipline and sacrifice of war, man learns forcibly to participate in a Greater Whole: the nation. It is the field of obedience to the structural Law of the universe, of the human species, of the community. In it, man may learn that he who loses his soul finds his divinity. And learning this, he becomes ready to knock at the gates of the Temple; to face the great metamorphosis which awaits him who, having become one with the Sphinx, enters the Pyramid for Initiation.
      So much has been written of late about "Initiation"! Yet there is always more to say, because, as in any vital crisis of transformation, everyone facing its challenge and its problems must of necessity go to meet them on the basis of his own relatively unique life-experience. More than this, Initiation means different things to the different parts of the human personality. In terms of technique, it may be represented by the grant of a diploma from the hands of the "University" to which the "master of technique" belonged. In terms of emotional repolarization and of the individual's relationship to a Greater Whole in the life of which he is ready to become participant, Initiation signifies the end of being alone — if not quite of being lonely.