Vesta in Aries

The asteroid goddess of tending our inner hearth enters the fire sign of making our mark upon the world.

Vesta entered Aries on February 7 at 11:43pm, where it will remain until transitioning into Taurus on April 16. I really love working with the asteroid goddesses (Vesta, Pallas Athena, Juno, and Ceres) because I find they bring much more nuance to my own natal chart and to the charts of others when I work with them. The myths of many of these goddesses have been greatly transformed over time by the patriarchal aspects of the Greco-Roman tradition, and if we dig a bit more into the true meaning of these deities and archetypes, it really gives us a beautiful opportunity to be more connected to deeper facets of our own selves.

I owe a great amount of my work with the asteroid goddesses to Kathleen Callahan/Daughter of Wands (https://www.daughterofwands.com) after I took a class with her about these planetary bodies and their mythologies in 2019. Vesta is the Roman version of the Greek goddess Hestia, the sacred goddess of the hearth, where the hearth represents the core aspect of self, and then, more broadly, the core of the community. We often may think of a hearth as being something simple, something mundane, but the spiritual meaning of the hearth is much more complex. Think about how hearth comes up in our terminology — of hearth and home, the place that is central, core, and essential in the concept of what makes a place a home. The hearth is the center — where food is cooked, where the home is warmed, the coals and the flame that so contained are necessary for our survival. So when we think about our own selves, our own internal hearths are essential, such a strong part of who we are. Hestia and Vesta were associated with virgin priestesses, where virgin meant they were whole unto themselves, without requiring a man, and thus also without becoming part of that man’s property/household (in the patriarchal viewpoint). Hestia was the oldest of the children born to Rhea (Earth) and Cronus (Time), and therefore was the youngest to be re-born when Zeus killed his father and rescued his siblings (Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Poseidon, and Hades).

I love thinking about tending our internal hearth when we think about Vesta in our charts. As Callahan describes Hestia/Vesta’s significance “The message appears to be that Hestia is definitely to be associated with Being and symbolises the primacy of Being” (Callahan 2019). Our hearth is our Being, our internal hearth is who we are, it is the sacred flame within us all that keeps us motivated, alive, full of possibility. The coals of the spirit that need tending. The white-hot flame of the forge within us that blazes forth when we are roused. What keeps us warm, protected, a home. Where Vesta falls in our chart, is where and how we can tend to our own sacred flames. The sign shows the way in which we need to tend the flame and what that flame requires to keep our Being vibrant, and the house shows where that flame may blaze most brightly and show us the way forward. What we need to do to feel most fulfilled. Where we can be most at home in the world. What brings us our own sense of completion in ourselves. Our own most sacred parts of the world, where we purify and are also ourselves purified. How we are committed to our own Being and how we dedicate ourselves on that sacred altar of self. I natally have Vesta in Taurus in my 7th house, where it is trine my natal Venus in Capricorn, so my internal hearth is devoted to materializing pleasure through a devotion to relationships, with great support from a strong Capricorn drive towards committed connection.

In Aries, Vesta is particularly brilliant and powerful, in my opinion, because this is a hearth goddess connected with a Fire sign. So much fire and power and energy within that sense of Being. I see Vesta in Aries as a beautiful time to start to work on the projects that are most important to our souls and to our paths in the world, especially in the house (life area) that Aries rules within each individual’s chart. This is a combination that is particularly potent when it comes to focusing on bringing forth one’s power in the shape that it needs to exist in. This is about committing to self-determination, self-belief, and self-empowerment, fully and completely. This is about the great rush of energy towards the Self, really giving space and strength to the self in order to deepen the commitment towards one’s purpose. There is a directedness and a brashness to Vesta in Aries that inspires it to take the first path it sees towards the higher goal at hand. This is an inner hearth and a center that are full of raw, initiatory power and that want to be seen in their fullest expression. This is energy that births out, fully formed, fully itself, engaging fully and proudly with the world.

What house will Vesta’s transit through Aries be giving your energy of devotion, Being, dedication, focus, center, and true home to? Where in your life do you get to have an even greater commitment to yourself? Where can you take that creative energy and send it blazing towards even greater fulfillment of your Being?