The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters.
~Psalm 23
Imagine the divine force within you leading you to a grassy hillside, where you rest under the vivid blue sky and cottony clouds, and drink from a refreshing stream. Your wool coat keeps you cozy and warm: you are surefooted and comfortable in your body, which is muscular and close to the ground. Your friends are close by, grazing and napping among the wildflowers, softly baaaahing messages of comfort to each other. It is a wide, wide world, and there is ample space to be alone, to imagine, to dream.
This is the typical life of the sheep in the wild. It is our life, when we sink down into our soft animal bodies and that place within us that is gentle, sweet and most loving.
2015 in Chinese Astrology is the year of the sheep. This is a spectacular time and global opportunity to meet the hard, rocky and precarious places in our lives with openness, grace and a gentle awareness. Sheep are also curious, intelligent, and persistent creatures. They are trusting, yet alert. If real danger lurks nearby, the mature male sheep, Ram, raises his noble horns, curved like a cornucopia—the horn of plenty overflowing with fruit and ears of grain—emblematic of abundance, but also a protective weapon against communal harm. Rams are not violent, they do not hunt other animals; they simply defend. Aries, the God of War, is depicted as a Ram. A true warrior saves fighting as a last resort and uses his wit and craftiness to mitigate violence: most sheep head-butt from time to time as warning, to establish social order, and even to exercise: all activities ultimately meant to keep the peace and help the flock flourish. When in danger, Ram puts his head behind his horns and enters the dance of death with the full force of his power.
Aside from Aries, in Greek Mythology, Ram is iconic of the Earth God Pan, whom artists in antiquity depicted as having the masculine sheep’s cloven feet and curved horns, but the face and body—and always erect genitals—of a human man. Pan did not have his own temple like the other Olympus deities; he was more of an outcast God, honored in caves and earthy shrines on the sides of mountains. Caves are believed to be entrances to the underworld, and feel like safe wombs. Pan was considered quick witted, playful and full of rapacious lust. (No wonder other religions that see lust as sin and nature as foul later used Pan as their model for the devil!)
Wanton Lust devoid of compassion can turn violent. Perhaps this is why pagans of old took care to honor Pan in ritualistic and communal ways: couples and sometimes groups would light fires in his caves and stay there until the first light: they would stay up all night drinking wine mixed with water (slows intoxication), and frolicking in the moonlight and dancing. When Pan plays his pan flute (listen, you can hear it now!), his music stirs up wild passion and longing in the souls of lovers; panic in the hearts of soldiers. Perhaps this is so they will retreat, re-group and discover a new, loving approach to conflict.
Pan, like Ram, bids us to leave the solid and confining walls of our houses and the rigid ideas of our society, and return to our true homes out in nature. This is where we rest, dream, create and with wild abandon, make most passionate love.
Welcome back to the flock!
