Festival of Gemini
Keynote for Festival of Gemini (Invocation Day)
- as spoken by the soul :
"I recognise my other self and in the waning of that self I grow and glow."
Invocation Day
This Festival of Gemini is known by the following names:-
- Invocation Day
- the Goodwill Festival
- the Christ Festival
Recommended Reading
Online Articles
"Year after year the Buddha and His Brother, the Christ, have worked in close cooperation for the spiritual benefit of humanity.They act together as Custodians of the highest type of spiritual force to which humanity can respond." Learn more about the energies distributed by the Christ during the full moon of the Festival of Gemini from the Lucis Trust 2007 Christ Festival Talk in New York.
The World Service Group worldservicegroup.com publishes articles as food for thought for each full moon. (If their home page does not display an article on the sign you are interested in, check their archives.
Books:
The Labours of Hercules
Labour III: Gathering the Golden Apples of the Hesperides
In two chapters of her book The Labours of Hercules [pp.54-76], Alice Bailey shares her deep insights into the astrological and spiritual significance of the story of Hercules' third labour. In the sign of Gemini, Hercules is confronted with five tests along his journey to find and pick the treasured golden fruit of the tree of wisdom.
The theme of this labour, she tells us, is the unifying of body and soul. The lesson of the disciple on the path is to register contact with the soul and to recognise its qualities.
Hints given
Alice Bailey explains to us that, at Hercules' stage of evolution in this story, contact with the higher self or with a Master of the Wisdom is necessarily brief. It usually only consists only of a hint to the aspirant - who is then left to work it out his problems for himself. Sometimes, this precious contact and guidance from the soul is not even recognized.
Lessons Learned
Some of the tests through which Hercules, the world aspirant, had to pass in this labour, led him to learn that:
- The truth lies within ourselves
- The way of the world is the way of appearances, and appearances are deceptive
- Deeds of love are signposts on the way
Prometheus Bound
How Hercules frees himself from suffering
The beautiful story unfolds of how Hercules, though he has journeyed long and hard, puts aside his quest when he hears desparate cries for help. He finds Prometheus "chained upon a rock, suffering dire agonies of pain, caused by the vultures plucking at his liver, thus slowly killing him."
Alice Bailey interprets for us the symbolism of the rescue of Prometheus [p.75] :-
"[Hercules] freed himself under the symbol of Prometheus, who signifies God incarnate, releasing him from the torture of the vultures of old. The solar plexus, the stomach and the liver are externalisations, if I might so express it, of the desire nature, and Hercules freed himself from the vultures of desire that had for so long tortured him. He gave up being selfish, and gave up satisfying himself. ... Prometheus, the God within, could [now] go forward to the service of the world and to lifting the burden of Atlas."
How to Hasten Success on the Path
Learn to Serve
Though there was much time lost in the rescue and tending of Prometheus, Hercules' spiritual Teacher deemed that :-
"There has been no delay. The rule upon the chosen Path which hastens all success is, 'Learn to serve'."
The Crucial Point of the Labour - the real test
Lifting the Burden of Atlas
On page 75, Alice Bailey tells us that:-
"After the sacrifice comes the reward, and Hercules received his great surprise after freeing both Prometheus and Atlas. Having given up his search in order to help the world, Atlas went for him to the garden and handed to him the golden apples, bringing him in touch with the three beautiful maidens, the three aspects of the soul."
The Constellations
Alice Bailey tells us that Gemini has in it two stars, called by the Greeks, Castor and Pollux, or the twins. They were also called Apollo and Hercules: Apollo, meaning the Ruler, the Sun God; and Hercules, "the one who comes to labour". They represent, therefore the two aspects of man's nature, the soul and the personality.
These two stars, she tells us, personify two major groups of stars, the Seven Pleiades, and the Seven Stars of the Great Bear, which are the two constellations, in the north, around which our universe [galaxy] seems to revolve.