Pallas Athena direct in Cancer

The integration of the lessons from within, for the warrior of the heart.

From https://dirceturayacucho.pe/blog/arte-en-arcilla-ayacuchana/

Pallas Athena is another one of those fantastic asteroid goddesses that I love to integrate into my astrology practice, thanks to what I have learned from Kathleen Callahan of Daughter of Wands, especially her Asteroid Goddess class I took in 2019. I love how the asteroid goddesses bring in a more nuanced way of thinking about the chart — more spectrums of energetic types, more diversity of ways of seeing the world, increased connection with more parts of our selves. Plus, each of the asteroid goddesses opens up even more sub-archetypes, as there are other asteroids connected to them, based on their mythologies and also mythological figures with similar connections or storylines or archetypal energetics from other parts of the world.

As Callahan describes it, Pallas Athena as astrological archetype is related to our creative intelligence, our ability to create in a way that is strategic and that helps us to help ourselves and those in our community. The wisdom to know what will help us and what will harm us, and to discern the difference. The protector of all that is created and made in and for the community. Athena was initially part of a triple goddess form of an Egyptian goddess of creation, called Neith. Interestingly, the triple goddess form, representing the new, full, and dark phases of the moon, were Athena, Metis, and Medusa. Both Metis and Medusa were sublimated within the mythology of Athena and separated from her mythology as she was separated from her early creative intelligence role and made into the warrior goddess for Greco-Roman mythology. Metis becomes Athena’s mother, swallowed by Zeus/Jupiter until Athena is birthed fully formed from his head. While Medusa with her serpent hair becomes an enemy that Athena helps to vanquish. There’s much more complexity to this, but al this said, when we look at Pallas Athena in the birth chart, we are looking at one’s creative capacity, the intelligence we use to create with, what we can accomplish, our wisdom, and how we can use our creative mentalities.

Pallas Athena has been retrograde in Cancer since December 1, 2022, at 26° Cancer, and stations direct on Feb 17 at 10° Cancer. The entirety of the transit for Pallas Athena in Cancer will run from September 7, 2022, until May 4, 2023. But here, I am particularly focusing on the importance of the return to the direct movement to integrate and utilize the retrograde lessons of the past several months. All retrogrades are about doing the inner work around the energetics of that planet/asteroid, about rethinking, reconsidering, re-understanding, re-evaluating, reconnecting, re-doing, and reviewing the principles of that planet/asteroid. When Pallas Athena is retrograde, therefore, we are reconsidering what it means for us to be in connection with our creative intelligence. We are re-forming our relationship with our ability to use our ideas to think beyond that which we can see and touch here. We re-evaluate what it means to utilize our ideas and mental capacities to create something new beyond what we could have previously imagined. With the retrograde in Cancer, this meant seeing how we could be more strategic in understanding our vulnerabilities and our protective elements. Reviewing how we exercise our wisdom through our heart and our nurturance. Reconnecting with our intuitive perceptional capacity. Re-understanding our capacity to create protective environments for healing. Realigning with the compassionate heart that creates spaces where we are safe to make our art. Now that Pallas Athena has stationed direct in Cancer, it is time to integrate those lessons we learned during the retrograde. To take all that we have reviewed, understood more deeply, realigned with, rejuvenated, and bring it out into the world. To utilize the last three months of this transit to figure out how to take the most aligned actions around our roles as nurturer and protector of the heart and the most vulnerable aspects of self, through what we can create to fulfill these energies.

When we are looking at any important transits of Pallas Athena, it also is interesting to look at the transits of Metis and Medusa as well (there are actually many other asteroids associated with the mythology of Athena, such as Neith or the asteroid representing the oracle at Delphi, but that delves too far afield for one blog post!). I find it interesting that both Metis and Medusa are in Pisces with the direct station — Metis at 14° Pisces and Medusa at Medusa at 6° Pisces. So there is a lot of support of watery energy and around the intuition to start to move us forward from the retrograde, really flowing in the mystical waters to help us to actualize our creative intelligence into the world through a strategic understanding of the mystical and by being a priestess of the mysteries. Neith will also be just over a week into its retrograde in Libra when Pallas Athena stations direct, reminding us of the importance of understanding what we can bring forth into the world when we re-evaluate what balance and harmony mean to us.

Where has the goddess of wisdom’s re-initiation been occurring in your chart? Where in your life can you start to actualize some of your lessons of heartfelt creative intelligence? How does this interact with your natal energies of this asteroid?